The Marauderette
by albuspercivalwulfricbrian
Summary: This is the story of Athena Dumbledore, best friend to the Marauders, grand-niece to Albus Dumbledore, and all around trouble maker.
1. The Beginning

A small blonde girl with dazzling blue eyes was bounding down the corridors of Hogwarts happily, the sound of her sandals echoing off of the stone. She was excited to get out to the lawn to meet her uncle, it was his birthday, She smiled when she saw her Uncle Al sitting beneath the shade of a tree by the lake, a blanket spread out with a cake and two goblets of milk next to him, he smiled when he saw her. "Happy birthday Uncle Al" She said joyfully as he stood up to hug her, she smiled and embraced him back. Every year they had the same tradition, they would come out on the grounds and enjoy a slice of birthday cake together, it was her most favorite thing about birthdays. You see on birthdays, no matter what, her Uncle Al would be there. She never got angry with him when he had to leave her, but sometimes she wished that she didn't have to share him with the rest of the wizarding world. "I have a special letter for you" Her Uncle said smiling, his blue eyes shining as he handed over a thick letter with green print on it, that she recognized as her Uncles scrawling handwriting. It was addressed to 'Athena Dumbledore, Out by the lake with her most favorite Uncle, Hogsmeade.' She positively beamed "Your my only Uncle!" Her Uncle smiled and nodded "And therefore your favorite by default." Athena gave him a look, unable to wipe the grin off of her face. She opened the letter, taking care not to break the seal, she would want to save this letter forever. "Dear Miss Dumbledore, I am pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." She read aloud, and her Uncle beamed at her. "Imagine if I wasn't?" She said laughing, and her Uncle chortled, seeing as the girl had been raised in Hogwarts her whole life, and he was the Headmaster.

Athena stood with the heard of other first years in the Great Hall that she loved so much. Her hand tightened around the handle of her wand, Phoenix tail core, Redwood, 10 inches, 'a particularly powerful matching' according to Ollivander.

"We'll be in Slytherin of course." A girl with dark hair and heavily lidded eyes said to the boy standing next to her.

"Slytherin? I think I'd leave. I'd rather be in Hufflepuff." A boy with messy black hair and glasses who was standing next to Athena interjected. Athena nodded in agreement.

"My whole family's been in Slytherin." A painfully handsome boy with thick dark hair and striking gray eyes said from next to the boy with glasses.

"Really? And I thought you were alright." The boy with glasses said grinning. The handsome boy just shrugged.

"I think I'll be different though."

"Black, Sirius" Professor McGonagall called out from next to a stool with a battered old hat sitting on top. The handsome boy walked confidently up to the stool, the hat was placed on his head and the boy had a determined look on his face, as if he was fighting with the hat. "Gryffindor!" The hat finally proclaimed and there was a tremendous amount of whispering from the Slytherins, Sirius Black however looked quite pleased as he made his way over to the Gryffindor table. A few more children were sorted, two for Slytherin and one Hufflepuff. "Dumbledore, Athena!" Professor McGonagall called, smiling slightly at the young girl. Athena caught her Uncle Al's eye and he winked at her, She sat on the stool a bit nervously looking out at the Hogwarts population. The hat had barely come in contact with her head before shouting out "Gryffindor!" There was a thunderous applause from the Gryffindor table and a few shouts of "We got Dumbledore!" and Athena sat down across from a smiling Sirius Black. More children were sorted and the next Gryffindor was Evans, Lily a small redheaded girl with big green eyes, who looked petrified, as she sat down next to Sirius. Athena then got lost in thought, looking around at the Great Hall and all the students, unable to believe that she was finally attending Hogwarts, she had been waiting her whole life! When she finally zoned back in the sorting was over and she was sitting next to the boy with messy black hair and glasses, and a small pale looking boy with sandy hair and pale blue eyes. "James Potter, charmed I'm sure." The boy with the messy hair said winking at Athena who rolled her eyes. "Athena Dumbledore." Athena got acquainted with the rest of the group Remus Lupin, the boy with sandy hair. And a rather plump boy named Peter Pettigrew kept nervously interjecting into the conversation.

Athena was walking back from her last class of the day with the Marauders (as the boys had dubbed themselves) "I can't believe Flitwick is going to put levitation charms on the test!" Peter whined, it was no secret that charms was his worst subject. "Yeah, I hope he has an endless supply of feathers for you Pete" James said grinning, Peter had managed to blow up 15 feathers in class today. It was halfway through their first year and they had finally figured out the group dynamic, the boys had frequently asked Athena for help with various things from marauding to homework. They knew that she wouldn't make fun of them if they needed help with work, and that she wouldn't tell on them if they asked for help with a prank, and Athena's michevious side liked having a hand in the pranks and she really didn't mind explaining homework if anybody needed help. "Ah come off it James, Peter we'll work on levitation tonight okay?" Athena said smiling warmly at Peter who blushed a little, he was always nervous around her. They had just reached the seventh floor where the portrait of the Fat Lady was located, When out of the corner of her eye Athena saw Bellatrix Black and her usual group of Slytherins standing outside of the portrait hole, levitating Lily Evans' school books out of reach. Athena whipped out her wand and marched over to the group, with the Marauders following tightly behind her. "Oi! Leave her alone!" Athena yelled as she reached the group, she stood in front of Lily who was obviously quite terrified. "Oh look who it is everybody, Athena Dunderhead!" Bellatrix said smirking, her merry band of Slytherins laughed at the comment. Behind her Athena could feel James, Sirius and Remus take their wands out to back her up. "Athena Dunderhead? That's really the best you could do?" Athena taunted, looking bored. She and Bellatrix had been fighting since their very first day. "Looks like Mum and Dad were right, that nutter Dumbledore raised another Mudblood lover." Bellatrix said smirking again, she knew that the way to get Athena riled up was to mention her Uncle. "Tell me Bella, are you so daft because your the product of the marriage between two first cousins? Honestly, for all of the hate you have for muggles you should really look into the muggle explaination of genetics. In a few years all you purebloods are going to be mutants." Athena said, bored expression still on her face but her eyes were flashing with anger. Behind her Athena heard Lily snort and stifle a giggle. "Something funny mudblood?" Rudolphus Lestrange spat, looking menacingly at Lily who moved closer to Remus under his gaze. Athena glanced over at Lily and shook her head for a moment before turning back to the Slytherins "Yeah Rudy, It's funny that we're standing here wondering when you Slytherins are going to stop being so damned thick, and we're wondering how many times I need to insult you morons before you get the picture that, and let me make this perfectly clear..." Athena stopped and pointed her wand to her throat, magnifying her voice. "WE. ARE. NOT. AFRAID. OF. YOU." She concluded, waving her wand back over her throat to lift the charm. Bellatrix looked positively livid, and raised her wand to hex Athena. Athena, not wanting to get into a duel today, was quite glad to see Professor McGonagall making her way up the stairs to the seventh floor. "What are you Slytherins doing up here anyway, isn't there to much sunlight up here for you? Too much happiness? Why don't you go crawl back to your dungeons where you belong." Athena spat, hand on her hip. Bellatrix opened her mouth to say a curse but Athena shook her head "Uh-Uh-Uh Bella, I wouldn't do that if I were you." She said indicating McGonagall who was approaching. Bellatrix looked torn for a moment "Your not worth the detention Dumbledore. This isn't over." Bellatrix said, venom dripping off of every word, and then with a sweep of her hand she and the rest of her Slytherin cronies were gone.

"That was bloody brilliant Dumbledore!" Sirius said when they had all arrived in the common room. Athena was sitting on the couch by the fire next to Lily who still looked rather shaken from the whole experience, and the boys were sitting in the comfy arm chairs across from them, Remus sat cross legged on the floor leaning against the chair the James sat in. "Thanks?" Athena said shrugging, she didn't see the big deal. "It was amazing to see those Slytherins get ripped to shreds by a little blonde Gryffindor!" James said excitedly, having just decided that Athena Dumbledore was the only girl in the world who was worth the time to talk to. "Oi! Watch what you say or it'll be you getting ripped up by this Gryffindor." Athena said, hand on her hip. James grinned at her. Lily kept glancing above her head and gripping her books to her chest, as if expecting Bellatrix to run in and take them again, Athena put a comforting hand on her shoulder "Relax there Evans, She won't bother you again, at least not today." Athena said frowing, wondering if she had just inadvertently marked the redhead for torment by defending her. "How do you know?" Lily said kind of timidly, Athena and the boys were the popular outspoken kids from Gryffindor, Lily preferred to study and blend in with the backround as best as she could. " 'Cus I've been fightin' her since the first day of school, I would be a fool not to learn her tactics." The blonde said matter of factly, she believed once you made an enemy, you made it your business to learn everything you could about them. "W-What did that mean, what they said..'Mudblood' I noticed you all got really offended, I've never heard that before." Lily asked looking around at her companions, the boys looked everywhere but at her. Athena sighed "It's a really bad name for somebody who's muggle born. It comes from the school of thought that the only people who are worthy of learning magic are those who are from 'pureblood' families, or in other words those who have wizarding parents, grand parents, great grandparents and so on and so forth. It means you have dirty blood, it's the worst thing a wizard can say to another wizard" Athena said frowning deeply, she was a pureblood, but a 'muggle lover' and therefore worse then somebody who was muggle born in the eyes of the Slytherins. Lily paled a little, she had wanted so much to come to Hogwarts and make tons of friends, she didn't know that the fact that she had non-magical parents would even be an issue. "It's codswallop in my opinion. I mean just look at you, your a much better witch then any of those Slytherin morons. I'm willing to bet on it, or my name isn't Athena Dunderhead." Athena said grinning, which got a smile out of Lily and boys who had previously looked stricken.


	2. Summer Skin

sb2 - summer skin

Since the day that the Maurauders had seen Athena defend Lily Evans, they had become as thick as thieves. They had accepted her into their group almost immediately, and wherever Athena was, a Marauder usually wasn't far away. She had gotten along best with James Potter though, and she spent a few weeks every summer at his home in Godrics Hollow. They regarded each other as the siblings they never had and James' parents were always thrilled when Athena would come and stay with them, which worked very well for Athena as the war in the wizarding world was heating up and her Uncle Al was needed more and more away from home. Thankfully he had a friendship with the Potters and felt quite comfortable with Athena staying there, which suited Athena just fine because it meant she got to spend the long summer days in the countryside with her best friend.

"I can't believe your going to be fourth years!" Mrs. Potter said tearing up, she said the same thing every year whenever their Hogwarts letters would arrive.

"Oh come on Mum. Fourth year is not a big deal, 'sides you promised you wouldn't do that again until we were seventh years." James said flinging his wet hair at Athena who mock glared at him, before copying his action and spraying him with her much longer hair.

Mrs. Potter had just called them in from swimming in the lake behind their home and announced that their letters had arrived. Athena and James were sitting at the large kitchen table, perusing their book lists and munching on sandwhiches when another owl came tapping at the window.

"Is that Lily's owl?" James automatically asked, just as he did every time an owl would show up at the house since Athena had arrived last month. She was spending the entire summer with the Potters this year and since Lily was her friend they often corresponded, although she probably wouldn't if she knew that Athena was staying at the Potters with the one boy in Hogwarts whom she despised.

"Yeah James."

"Did she mention me?"

"No James."

James frowned, he had announced in second year that Lily Evans was the love of his life and that they would one day be married, and had been unsuccesfully chasing her since then. Which the Marauders, and the lone Marauderette found quite amusing. Athena read the letter, the usual stuff complaining about her sister Petunia, wondering if they would have a lot of work this year, asking what Athena thought about the latest news in the Daily Prophet. Athena tried to avoid the Prophet as much as possible, learning early on that it only reported the bare bones of what actually happened. The Ministry was still taking the stance that all of the horrible things that were happening were coincidental and in no way related which was absolute rubbish. So whenever she wanted the full story she would owl her Uncle and he would tell her no holds barred the truth. Athena sat down and penned a quick response to Lily's letter and went off in search for her owl Click.

"Mrs. P? Have you see Click around?" Athena called as she looked around at the usual spots were the owls would be during the day

"No, Sorry Teens I let him out this morning with Mango, they haven't come back yet." Mrs. Potters voice came from the laundry room.

Athena grinned slightly at the use of her nickname, the Potters had been calling her 'Teens' or 'Teensie' for as long as she could remember. Mr. Potter had come up with the nickname, and it had just stuck. From anybody else Athena would have despised the name, but she loved it from them, it made her feel like a piece of the family. And of course the Potters were the only people who were allowed to call her by this nickname. Once in third year Sirius had heard James calling her Teensie and tried to call her it, and she went ballistic. She put her letter to Lily in the bedroom across from James'. The bedroom she always slept in, the Potters had decorated it in various Gryffindor memorabilia.

"Oi Teensie! Lets go out to the rock." James said walking into her room and flopping face first on the bed. Athena rolled her eyes but pulled on shorts, and a tanktop over her bathing suit and laced up her canvas tennis shoes. James was impatiently drumming his fingers on the bed as she tied her blonde hair into a long plait.

"Alright, Lets go." She said grabbing her wand off of the dresser and shoving it into her pocket, she was still underage to use magic, but her Uncle had cautioned her to take her wand with her no matter where she went. Her wand was like a part of her, and if it wasn't with in an arms reach, she felt naked and vulnerable.

Athena and James were laughing as they ran through the woods behind James' house. Athena's long braid flew out behind her as they ran over the soft forest floor. They stopped, panting as they reached the edge of the woods, it cleared out into a meadow with long grass. Athena smiled, this was her and James' place. They had discovered the meadow the first day she had ever stayed with the Potters, she and James had gone out exploring and this was what they found. There was a large flat rock in the direct center of the meadow, that they laid down next to eachother like they always did. Tanned skin soaking up even more of the suns warm rays, hands thrown casually over the side of the rock, grazing the tall grass below. A soft warm breeze blew over them, and Athena couldn't help thinking that this was the most perfect place on the earth.

"How d'you reckon Sirius is doing." James asked, rolling over onto his stomach to look at Athena, who was shading her eyes from the bright sun.

"I want to say he's probably doing really well and is happy and well fed, but you and I both know that probably isn't the case." Athena said frowing. It broke her heart that every summer Sirius had to go back to the hell hole known as The Most Ancient and Noble House of Black.

"It just makes me so fuckin' angry you know? I mean if my kid ends up being in Slytherin and a total pureblood jerk, I still wouldn't starve him or Crucio him." James said angrily, his fists in balls, he was worried about his friend.

"I doubt your kid would ever be a pureblood jerk, 'sides aren't you planning on marrying Evans anyway?" Athena said grinning as she turned to look into James' eyes.

"Too right you are, although sometimes I wonder if I've gone mad. I mean the girl can't stand me." He said frowning again, and turned onto his back, looking up at the clear blue sky.

"We've all been asking the same question, but hey who knows what the future will hold." Athena said patting James' hand reassuringly.

"You mean to tell me that you were at Potters house the whole time?" Lily screeched, Athena winced and looked guilty

"Oh come on Evans, Like you would have ever written me if you knew where I was. 'sides you know I go there every summer." Athena defended, her red headed friend had found out her little secret on Platform 9 3/4 and had shoved her into an empty compartment on the train as soon as they stepped foot on the Hogwarts Express.

"I know you stay there every year Athena, but I didn't know you would be spending the entire summer with that vile-"

"Watch it!" Athena warned, Lily Evans was literally the only person on the earth that she would allow to insult James in her presence, but only a little.

"Ah! There you are Teensie.. and Lily!" James said walking into the compartment, looking positively overjoyed.

"Well.. I'll be going then. Your not off the hook though." Lily said and she got up to walk out of the compartment. James made a move to grab her and say something but Athena caught his eye and shook her head frantically. James closed his mouth and allowed Lily to leave.

"What was that for?" James asked, frowning.

"Wouldn't it be nice to start the year with her leaving your presence for once not thinking your a complete arse?" Athena said grinning, James shrugged but his frown left his face, he liked the plan.

Athena looked over and finally noticed that Remus and Peter were standing there staring open mouthed at her. She gave them a quizzical look before waving her hand in front of their eyes and snapping a few times.

"Um? Hello? Anybody in there?" She asked, glancing over and James who shrugged, not having a clue why there were acting that way.

"Huh? Oh sorry. Hi Athena, you look- well you look-..um you look-" Remus snapped out of it first, but his speaking abilities seemed to be hindered.

"Different. You look different." Peter said still staring at her, but he had the werewithall to sit down across from Athena and James, pulling Remus down next to him.

"Alllrighty then." Athena said, leaning over to pinch Peter.

"Ouch! What was that for?" He asked, rubbing his arm where she had pinched it.

"Thats for not writing! Even Sirius wrote this summer and you know how he is" Athena scolded, Peter grinned at her but shrugged, looking down at the floor. The truth was he had begun a million letters to her and to James but always scrapped them because he thought they sounded stupid.

"Speaking of Sirius, where is the ol' git?" James piped up, he had been contemplating his encounter with Lily, and the fact that Athena apparently looked so different that it had stopped Remus and Peter in their tracks. She didn't look any different to him.. but he had seen her everyday for the past two months.

"He got caught by Judy McGlynn, that Ravenclaw girl from the end of last year. She was chewing him out for not keeping in touch." Remus said grinning, Athena rolled her eyes. Typical.

"Guess she hasn't found out about Henrietta Gooden yet then." Athena asked,shaking her head. Henrietta and Judy _were _best friends, but Sirius had been 'seeing' both of them at once. Athena used to feel bad for the girls that he did that too, but as time went on she realized that most of these girls were morons and really deserved whatever they got, and they were all really only dating him because he was Sirius Black. There was also the small fact that all of the girls Sirius dated hated Athena with a passion.

"No I reckon not, I imagine we'd hear her screaming if she did. Remember when she found out Roger Brown had been flirting with Vespera Gibbs? We could hear her shouting at him from Gryffindor tower." James said smirking, when the girls found out about each other it really wasn't going to be pretty.

Athena shook her head, Sirius Black and his love life were the last things on her mind currently. Sleep was the first. She yawned and stretched out her legs across the bench, leaning on James who was sitting against the window and had pulled out his well worn copy of Quidditch Through the Ages. James automatically threw his arm around her shoulders, resting it on her stomach. She leaned her head back against his body, and he kissed the top of her head gently as her breathing evened, she fell into a comfortable sleep.

"Look darling I'm sorry, but I've really got to go. Uh.. Athena was sick over the summer and I need to make sure she's okay." Sirius said thinking off of the top of his head, he needed any excuse to get as far away from Judy McGlynn as possible.

"Oh really? Athena Dumbledore. Your cheating on me with her aren't you!" Judy shrieked, and Sirius winced. That was a mistake, he should have learned by now not to bring Athena into any conversation with Judy, who was notorious in her hatred for his blonde friend.

"Of course not. We're just friends." Sirius said as he backed slowly out of the compartment, turning and making a break for it as soon as he got far enough out of the door.

"Ah there you are Sirius." Remus said happily as Sirius entered the compartment that housed his friends. Remus put his finger to his lips telling Sirius to be quiet, and indicated James in the corner who had a very attractive blonde sleeping on his shoulder.

"Good to see James is finally over Evans." Sirius whispered to Remus who looked at him quizzically.

"Thats Athena." Remus said simply, a small grin playing about his face. He knew exactly why Sirius was confused. Sirius glanced back at the sleeping girl and felt his heart jump up into his throat. Athena looked different.. She looked amazing. She had grown curves in all the right places over the summer, and was no longer just a blonde stick with eyes. Her skin was sporting a deep tan that contrasted very pleasingly with her golden hair, that had white blonde streaks in it from the sun, from days of running around in the sun with James no doubt. Sirius couldn't explain the feeling he got as he looked at her, I mean this is Athena right? Plain old Athena with the sharp wit who liked to pull pranks and get into fights. Wasn't it? James glanced over at him and saw the way he was looking at Athena and gave him an odd look, before glancing over at Remus and Peter who were silently laughing at him.

"Teens, Love wake up were almost at school, you've got to change into your robes." James whispered into Athenas ear, and for some reason Sirius yearned to be able to do that with her. To have that closeness. His mouth went dry as she opened her trademark big sparkling blue eyes, the same eyes that he had made fun of her for, for three years because they were so big they seemed to take up her face. But she had grown into them, and they were gorgeous and Sirius thought that he had never seen a more beautiful girl in his entire life.

"Huh? Oh thanks. Sirius! We were wondering where you got to." Athena said smiling at him, rosy lips framing her perfect white teeth. Sirius had never noticed how nice her smile was.

"Yeah, Judy McGlynn wasn't happy to see me." Sirius said frowning a little, suddenly hating the fact that Judy had gotten even a second of his time because she was absolutely nothing compared to Athena. He mentally slapped himself, what the bloody hell was going on? This was Athena Dumbledore for Merlins sake. One of his best friends, and he should not be thinking about her like that.

As it turned out the Marauders weren't the only ones who noticed the change in Athena. Much to their annoyance they were now constantly bombarded with their classmates asking questions about Athena's likes and dislikes.

"This is what it must have been like for her, with all of Sirius and James' fangirls." Remus said frowning, Amos Diggory had just been asking them whether or not Athena had a date for the Yule Ball yet. What was interesting was ever since the first day of school all the males in Hogwarts had seemed to go crazy over her, but nobody ever asked her out. Rumor was they were all afraid that Professor Dumbledore would expel them for asking out his niece, which Remus and the rest of the boys thought was rubbish. _If anything, they should be more worried about us. _Remus thought, grinning. James had been in detention more times then ever this year, fighting every guy that said anything disrespectful about Athena, and there were a lot of them. Athena of course hadn't even noticed the new attention she was getting.


	3. The Dog, The Rat, The Stag, and The Lion

ch 3 - the rat the dog the stag and the lion

"Bloody Hell. This is so confusing!" James said sighing and throwing the book on Animagi across the room. They had been trying for the better part of a month to figure it out, but none of them could get fifth year James and Sirius had come up with the idea to become Animagi so that Remus wouldn't have to be alone on the nights he transformed. Remus was incredibly guilty, he felt it was going behind Professor Dumbledores back, when he had trusted him to come into his school, but his desire to be with his friends during those long and horrible nights out weighed the guilt.

"Athena would be able to do it." Peter said nervously from the corner, they knew that become an unregistered animagus was illegal, and they had to be very careful about not letting anybody outside the group know. They hadn't decided if Athena was going to be in on this knowledge or not.

"I think your right Pete. I mean its not like she'd run off and tell the Ministry on us right?" James said, taking a long look at each of his friends.

"She obviously wouldn't tell the Ministry, but would she be able to keep it from Professor Dumbledore?" Sirius asked, looking across the common room at Athena who had fallen asleep with her Transfigurations O.W.L. review book on her chest.

"I think if we asked her not to she wouldn't. You know, her Gryffindor loyalty and all." James said grinning. It was a joke around Hogwarts about how Athena was the model Gryffindor, the sorting hat had barely gotten within five feet of her before deciding she was a Gryffindor, a fact that all of them secretly envied about her.

"Psst! Athena!" Sirius whispered, poking her shoulder. Athena grumbled and tried to turn over, falling off the couch and landing face down on the common room floor.

"Damnit Black! I was sleeping!" Athena growled, sitting up and glaring at her friends who were now in absolute hysterics on the other side of the common room.

"Sorry 'Thena. But we need your help with something." Sirius said indicating the still giggling group of boys on the other side of the common room. Athena nodded and leaned in close to Sirius as he explained what was going on.

Midway through their fifth year, the Maruaders and Athena were standing in a circle in the Room of Requirement. They had been sneaking into that room every night since they had asked Athena for help with what they wanted to accomplish, and tonight was the night that everything was supposed to come together. Remus stood to the side with his wand out and two books on healing and Animagi in the event that something should go wrong.

"Alright guys. Concentrate." Athena said to Sirius, James and Peter who were standing side by side, each of them had an expression of pure concentration on their faces. Suddenly instead of James, a large stag stood in his place.

"Bloody hell! He's done it! A stag! Wow!" Sirius exclaimed, looking every bit like a child on christmas morning. Athena grinned, he was so cute when he was happy. The stag was happily bounding around the room, knocking over everything it is path, much to the amusement of the remaining marauders. His success inspired them, and then in the place where Athena was standing, stood a proud looking lioness, with hair the same color as Athena and sparkling blue eyes.

"A lioness? Honestly Dumbledore could you be more Gryffindor if you tried?" Sirius asked chuckling. The lioness bared her teeth at him and he backed away, before renewing his concentration and morphing into a shaggy looking black dog, next to him Peter morphed into a brown rat. The lioness and the dog were wrestling playfully on the floor while the stag bounded around them, snorting every once in a while when his antlers would catch on something. Remus had to wonder if he had in fact gone mad.

On their way back to the common room Athena and Sirius were giggling silently as they morphed effortlessy in and out of their animagus forms, stopping every few feet to bite playfully at each other, much to the annoyance of Remus and Peter. James however was laughing heartily at his two friends.

"Will you two cut it out! You're going to get us caught!" Remus whispered harshly, giving Athena and Sirius a look when they finally morphed back into their human forms where they stayed, each letting out bursts of uncontrolled laughter every time they would make eye contact with each other. Remus looked to the ceiling silently asking Merlin why he had such morons for friends.

"This is all so exciting! I can't believe we actually did it!" Athena said grinning "Whens the next full moon anyway? It'll be cool to test out our forms in the forest."

The boys all suddenly stopped and stared at her, all hints of laughter were gone from Sirius and James' faces.

"You are absolutely one hundred percent, not a shot in hell getting anywhere near the forest on a full moon." James said, his tone indicating that he would not be debating the subject with her. Athena looked at the Marauders quizzically.

"You can't be serious! We went through all of that and you won't even let me come? You wouldn't even be able to do it if it wasn't for my help!" Athena said indignantly, glaring fiercely at them.

"You can glare at me all you want Teens but your not getting within a kilometer of the Shrieking Shack." James said folding his arms in front of him, knowing that Athena wouldn't go down without an argument.

Athena looked to Sirius, he was usually her ally in things like this, but his face held a similar expression to James' and he shook his head as if to say 'not this time, mate.' Athena growled.

"Your rediculous! I'm a LION for Merlins sake! I'll be able to hold my own! I want to be out there where the action is!" Athena cried throwing her arms in the air, knowing that she was defeated. The group had continued their trek back to Gryffindor Tower.

"You could be a giant for all I care Athena. This isn't about keeping you away from the action, it's about keeping you safe." James said, squaring her by the shoulders and looking hard into her eyes as they stopped in front of the portrait of the Fat Lady.

"I agree Athena. I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if anything happened to you." Remus said softly, looking over at the fiery blonde,silently begging that she would understand.

Athena softened as she looked at the young werewolf, she wouldn't be happy about it, but she wouldn't ever make Remus uncomfortable. She sighed in defeat.

"Good to know you care about hurting us Moony!" Sirius said cheekily, trying to lighten the situation. James shot him a look.

"I want you to promise me that you won't come anywhere near Remus during a full moon." James said seriously, still staring into Athena's eyes. She nodded slowly, deciding that she would only venture out on a full moon of there was a dire circumstance, of course she wouldn't divulge that information, so she just kept nodding mutely.

James took her silence to mean that she had accepted defeat and he pulled her close to him in a warm embrace. The Maruaders had given up teasing James for how affectionate he was with Athena and had now just accepted it as a fact of life, even following his example on some things, the four boys were fiercely protective of Athena Dumbledore, though nobody nearly as much as James. and she was the same about them, often getting into scrapes with the Slytherins over it.

Athena was walking back from the quidditch pitch with the boys when she saw the group of Slytherins approaching. Sirius and James appeared at her shoulders protectively, and Remus and Peter brought up the rear, their wands out behind the others backs so as to have an element of surprise with the Slytherins.

"Well, What do we have here? The Gryffinwhore and her body guards!" Bellatrix said laughing sadistically, her ever present group of followers behind her. Athena rolled her eyes at the irony of that statement.

"Gryffinwhore? I say Bella you are getting better. I must admit I have the sneaking suspiscion you aren't writing your own material though." Athena said as she tried to push pass the group of Slytherins, she had promised her Uncle that she wouldn't get into another fight with Bellatrix Black for at least a week. The Slytherins however, had different ideas, and she was pushed roughly back by Druella Rosier.

"Oh no running away this time Dumbledore. Don't think I've forgotten about last week." Bellatrix said smirking menacingly. Athena wracked her brain for what she could have done last week.. what was it again? Oh yeah! She had hexed Bellatrix's nose off. A vast improvement she thought.

"Funny you should say that Bellatrix as I distinctly recall you and your lapdogs here running away nine out of ten times." James said, putting a hand on Athenas shoulder, he was getting an odd vibe from the group and he didn't like it. He especially didn't like the way Snivelly was eyeing Athena.

Bellatrix cackled. "We'll see who's running in the end Potter." Bellatrix turned her gaze to Sirius "Cousin! How unfortunate it is to see the company that you continue to keep. Blood-Traitors and Half-Breeds. I had been so hopeful that it was just a phase."

Athena felt Sirius tense beside her, and he opened his mouth to retort but Athena cut him off, yawning exaggeratedly. Whenever Sirius and Bellatrix would get into a battle of words, things would always get incredibly personal and nasty, and Athena would rather redirect the attention to herself.

"What was that, you traitorous piece of filth!" Bellatrix spat, eyes flashing, her attention trained fully on Athena now.

"Huh? Oh nothing, I was just wondering when this was going to be over with. Debating weather I'll kip back up to the dorms for a nap." Bellatrix was fuming, so Athena continued. "I mean really it's always 'Blood traitor this' and 'mudblood that' It's getting a bit boring." Athena said, looking at her nails, a thoroughly unamused expression on her face.

"Oh really, bored are you Dumbledore? I wonder how bored you'll be when the Dark Lord sends your dearest uncle to the grave that so anxiously awaits him" Bellatrix said smirking. Athena lunged at her, but Rodolphus Lestrange was expecting this, and defended his little girlfriend, punching Athena square in the face. There was a sickening crack and blood was pouring from Athena's nose down to her shirt, and that was when all hell broke loose. She let out some kind of animal sound and flung herself onto Bellatrix, biting, thrashing, kicking, clawing, just trying to inflict as much harm as possible. Meanwhile James was going to town on Rodolphus, nearby Sirius and Rodolphus' brother Rabastan where rolling around on the floor punching each other, Peter and Snape where fighting each other and Remus was engaged in a battle with Caspar Crouch. Meanwhile other students had gathered around and were chanting 'Fight! Fight!'

The Gryffindors and the Slytherins were each out for blood, and the fight could have gone on for days if it wasn't for McGonagall blasting the teenagers apart.

"Gryffindors, to Dumbledores office. Immediately! Slytherins, to Professor Slughorn!" The older witch snapped at them, and the Mauraders and Athena trudged slowly up the grounds to the entrance hall, and then to Dumbledores office.

"Chocolate Frogs." Athena said heatedly, her adreneline still pumping from the altercation.


	4. Just A Date For The Ball

ch4

"One week. One week was all I asked of you Athena." Professor Dumbledore said rubbing his temples, pointedly not looking up at the five young Gryffindors who sat opposite him.

"But Professor they deserved it! 'Sides Athena didn't even throw the first punch!" Sirius defended, before snapping his mouth shut. He knew from previous experience that getting involved in a fight between the two Dumbledores was never a good idea.

"Who threw the first punch Mr. Black?" Dumbledore said, lifting his head to gaze penetratingly into Sirius' grey eyes.

"Rodolphus Lestrange sir. He hit Athena in her face, her nose is probably broken." Sirius said honestly, before hastily looking down at his hands, Dumbledore always seemed to see right to the core of him and it was a little unnerving.

"It's true sir." Remus confirmed, nodding slowly. Glancing over at Athena who was sitting in stony silence, blood was still slowly dripping down her face.

Dumbledore sighed deeply, his face darkening as he glanced up at his beloved niece. She was the love of his life, but must she always cause him so much grief?

"Go down the Hospital Wing, all of you." Dumbledore said finally.

"What? No detentions?" Athena said finally, looking up at her Uncle, who just shook his head, giving her a small smile that he reserved just for her.

"Of course not. I can't fault you for defending yourselves. Now go, Madame Pomfrey will paint my back porch red if I keep you from getting your nose mended a moment longer." Dumbledore said, and the teenagers filed out, snickering at the imagery.

They had just made it past the Great Hall when-

"ATHENA DUMBLEDORE! WHAT I JUST HEARD BETTER NOT BE TRUE!"

"OH MERLIN IT IS TRUE! WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO LEARN?" Lily Evans shrieked, as she tore down the corridor toward her friend. Athena had blood dripping from her nose, down to her chin and onto her white uniform shirt, which was torn and tattered. Her stockings were ripped up and her hair was disheveled. She was also sporting a black eye and what appeared to be fingernail scratches down the length of her arms. The boys weren't in much better shape, although Athena looked the worst because of the volume of blood on her face and clothes.

"Look at you! You look like you got hit with a truck!" Lily exclaimed rushing to Athena's side.

"Yeah well.. You should see the other guy." Athena offered feebly, she was becoming more and more aware of the mind numbing pain in her nose, and tears had sprung into her eyes, making it difficult for her to see.

"Fighting again. A full on brawl? When are you going to start being a girl?" Lily prodded Athena with her wand. Athena shrugged.

"I just don't get it Athena. Your so gorgeous, imagine how many guys would be after you if you acted like a lady for once." Lily said as Athena rolled her eyes, she had been getting this speech from Lily for years.

The Maruaders however protested this statement. They were already fielding practically every male in the school and it was becoming incredibly tedious, and it made all four of them incredibly angry, though each for different reasons. In the Maruaders humble opinion, the last thing Athena needed was more guys after her.

"Oh for Merlins sake what have the five of you gotten into now?" Madame Pomfrey called out as they reached the hospital wing. The boys had just shrugged, grinning guiltily, Athena however was becoming blinded by the pain and the tears in her eyes, so she just flopped down on the nearest bed and waited for Pomfrey to make her way over.

"Fighting again! Tsk Tsk. Drink this Dumbledore. Now this is going to hurt." Madame Pomfrey said as Athena polished off the familiar goblet of fracture healing potion, she had broken more bones during her time at Hogwarts than she could remember. Madame Pomfrey placed both hands on the side of Athena's face and then roughly pushed the sides of her nose together with her thumbs. Athena let out a loud hiss of pain, and the boys and Lily looked at her sympathetically.

"There now, good as gold!" Athena said grinning as she and the boys walked out of the Hospital Wing, each having been healed of their various cuts and bruises. Lily had gone off muttering about their imaturity shortly after Athena's nose was fixed. They all looked much better, though Athena still had light bruising around her eye, they looked fine. Except of course for the state of their tattered clothes.

"Merlin. I'm knackered." James said as he flung himself onto the comfortable couch in the Gryffindor common room, his friends copied his actions on the various chairs that filled the room, Athena yanked a pillow off the couch and snuggled up on the floor.

"The girl could sleep anywhere." James said chuckling as he stood up and gently lifted the now softly snoring Athena and placed her on the couch, before sitting protectively in front of her as if Rodolphus might burst into the room at any time and punch her again.

Sirius stared at his sleeping friend. Sometimes it honestly took his breath away how beautiful she was, even with a slight black eye, and blood all over her clothes she still looked like a vision. Sirius blinked, forcing the thought from his head. Sirius had hinted last year about him being with Athena to James, and James had gone off his rocker. Sirius had quickly explained that he was just joking, and his messy haired friend had calmed down, but the reaction had stuck with him. So he pushed all thoughts of how perfect Athena was out of his mind, and instead threw himself into fling after meaningless fling.

He glanced back over to her, a small smile was playing about her lips and he couldn't help but wonder what she was dreaming of. She was so innocent when she slept, it was so different from the usually fiery raging girl that occupied her while she was awake. She was a roaring good time though, he'd have to give her that.

A few weeks after the Gryffindors battle with the Slytherins, the Maurauders and Athena were still getting pats on the back and "Good on ya's!" from various people. The four boys and their ever present blonde were sitting at the Gryffindor table having lunch on a Saturday. James and Sirius were recounting their heroic battle with the Slytherins to some third year girls who looked awe struck. Athena, Remus and Peter were snickering softly each time one of the third years would swoon.

"Oi, Athena?" Somebody suddenly called from the other side of the table. Athena glanced around and saw Gideon Prewett, a seventh year, and in her opinion the most handsome boy in Gryffindor, if you didn't count Sirius that was, and she didn't. Gideon strode over to her, smiling, and sat down next to her, squeezing Peter into one of the third year girls who squeaked in disgust.

"What's up Gideon?" Athena asked, grinning. Trying to keep her cool, the tall muscular red head was the stuff of every girl who attended Hogwarts dreams, because not only was he incredibly handsome, he was sweet, and funny, and smart and a really good wizard. He and his twin brother were a force to be reckoned with.

"Oh not much. I just realized I never told you how brilliant you were in that fight with the Slytherins." Somewhere in the backround Lily Evans made a sound of protest and disbelief.

"Thanks, It wasn't that big of a deal. These two gits are making it much more then it was." Athena said indicating James and Sirius who had stopped recounting their tale, and were now listening to Athena's conversation closely.

"I think it's a pretty big deal. I saw Lestrange deck you, I almost hexed him into oblivion myself, and you just kept on fighting. You've got guts Dumbledore." Gideon said smoothly, Athena felt her heart doing the ballet in her chest.

"It's nothing to fuss over, I wasn't about to let them talk about my Uncle that way." Athena said blushing slightly, and then silently cursing herself for bringing her Uncle Al into the conversation. Everyone was always telling her about how all of these guys had fancied her, but nobody ever asked her out. She never got asked to Hogsmeade, and she went to the Yule Ball last year with James. She reckoned it was because they were all afraid to get on the headmasters bad side.

"Thats very admirable. So listen, I was wondering if you have a date to the Yule Ball yet, or if your going to let Potter hog you all night like last year." Gideon said flashing her a winning smile, and running his fingers through his auburn hair almost nervously.

Athena glanced over at James, who was glaring at Gideon. Athena rolled her eyes, Where James got off being so damned protective of her, she didn't know.

"No, I don't have a date. Why? Are you asking?" Athena said flirtatiously, deciding that if he had the guts to ask her out, that he must actually like her.

"Yeah I'm asking. What do you say?"

"Sure. I'd love to." Athena said beaming. She had dreamed of this scenario a hundred times, and now it was actually happening!

"Thats great! I'll see you around alright? I think Fabien over there is wetting his pants in excitement." He said indicating his brother who was looking at the two of them, anxious for information.

"Its nothing to fuss over!" Sirius said in a high pitched impression of Athena. The Marauders were all lying in their beds, winding down for the night. Sirius felt irrationally angry with Athena, and he was about ready to throttle Gideon Prewett, who had been strutting around Hogwarts all day like he owned the place.

"Calm down Padfoot. Who cares if she goes with Prewett to the ball? He's a pretty nice kid, weren't you just saying the other day that he was alright? There's no need to be getting all aggro." Remus said staring up the ceiling, he too was feeling jealous of the seventh year, but he wasn't about to get angry about it.

"I agree with Padfoot. What's he playing at asking Athena to the ball. She's a fifth year, I swear on Merlin if he tries to do anything with her, I'll hex him into the next century!" James said, fuming.

"Exactly! Seventh years are all about shagging. He probably thinks he'll be able to shag her!" Sirius said, the explaination dawning on him.

"I'll kill him!" James shouted abruptly standing up and grabbing his wand off the table, looking every bit ridiculous with his glasses askew and in his pajamas.

"Bloody hell James get back in bed. Did you ever think that maybe he asked her because she's very pretty, or perhaps because she's fun to be around. You yourself said last year that you were glad Lily had rejected you because you had such a good time with Athena." Remus said, as always being the voice of reason.

James flopped back down on his bed. "Yeah, but I've got the right to have a good time with her! She's MY friend!" He said defensively. Remus rolled his eyes.

"Maybe he wants to be friends with her too."

"Well she's got enough friends thank you very much! What, we aren't good enough for her anymore?" Sirius said glaring at Remus, why did he have to be so bloody right all the time.

"You two are acting like lunatics, and your one to talk about Gideon only wanting a shag, because honestly Padfoot, look at yourself. Your worse than Prewett by a mile." Remus said angrily, before roughly pulling the shades of his bed closed, and casting a silencing charm. He was done with THAT conversation.

Sirius and James looked scandalized, but followed Remus' lead, and each pulled their shades shut, leaving a very bewildered Peter sitting on his bed.

The argument was resolved by the next day, and in time the Marauders actually began to like Prewett, he was on all accounts very nice to Athena.

"Prewetts not so bad, 'sides I'd rather him than somebody like Padfoot right?" James said grinning, and patting his friend on the back. Oblivious to the fact that Sirius Black was currently in a silent war with himself over that very fact.

Athena dated Gideon for the rest of the year, they had a wonderful time at the ball, Gideon even spent a lot of the night chatting with her Uncle, an action that made Athena swoon with delight. He was incredibly kind to her, and he was a lot of fun to be around, and most importantly he had gotten James' seal of approval, because even though she would never tell him that, James' approval meant a lot to her. So they became attached at the hip, which was hard for the Marauders to stomach at fist, since Athena used to be with THEM 24/7, but they got used to it, and it wasn't like they never saw her, they still saw her more then Gideon did. Athena was very happy that year, and it was hard to see Gideon go in June, but he promised that they would see each other again someday, and held her close as she cried.


	5. The Disowning of Sirius Black

ch5

Athena stretched and yawned, there was an incessant tapping at her window. She opened one eye, and tried to glare but the sun was shining too brightly through the glass so instead she just buried her head under the covers. Much to her relief, the tapping stopped. She was about to fall back asleep when the tapping was replaced by knocking at her door.

"Yes?" Athena called, muffled because her head was still hidden under her sheets. This was the first time all summer that she had been able to sleep in, and it wasn't going very well.

"It's me Athena, can I come in?" Her Uncle called from the other side of the door, he always respected her privacy and asked first before entering.

"Sure." Athena mumbled back, still buried deep in her duvet. Her Uncle entered the room, with a familiar looking owl on his arm and a letter in his hand. It took Athena's tired mind a few seconds to place that the owl belong to the Potters, Mango.

"Mango came this morning, I assume she tried tapping at your window and failed, so she decided to come down to mine." Uncle Al said grinning, Athena groaned.

"James must have finally gone off his rocker, what's he playing at sending me an owl this early?" Athena mumbled, pulling the letter from her Uncles hand before he sat in large red arm chair on the other side of her room, Mango still perched contentedly on his arm, picking at his beard every once in a while.

Athena read the letter quickly, before jumping out of bed and running frantically to the living room. In shock, her Uncle jumped up and ran after her, the owl jumped off his arm and screeched in protest at the sudden movement.

"Athena? What's the matter?" Albus yelled as he caught up with her finally in the living room where she was standing in the fireplace, with a handful of floo powder, still dressed in her pajamas with one sock on.

"I need to go to the Potters now, Nobody's in danger so don't worry, James just needs me." Athena said breathlessly, her Uncle considered her for a moment, before nodding a signal that she would be able to go now without explaining, but she would have to tell him when she got back. She smiled at him appreciatively before throwing the floo powder down and shouting "POTTER MANOR!" and dissappearing in a swirl of green flames.

Athena tumbled out of the fireplace onto the Potters living room rug, coughing and spluttering at Mr. Potters feet, he hadn't even flinched when she came flying out of his fireplace. He simply looked up at her over his Daily Prophet and waved his wand over her, cleaning off the ashes, before grinning broadly at her. Mr. Potter and Athena got on famously.

"Mornin' Teens. They're upstairs." said Mr. Potter, indicating the staircase with his head. Athena smiled at him and kissed him on the cheek before sprinting upstairs past the bedroom she called her own, and across the hall bursting into James' bedroom.

"Merlin Teensie, you didn't have to get all dressed up for us." James said grinning, Athena looked down at herself, she was wearing a rumpled tank top and a pair of boxer shorts that she had knicked off Gideon, they always made her feel closer to him at night.

Athena merely rolled her eyes at him before gingerly sitting at the foot of his bed, Sirius was sitting at the head of the bed, looking rather vacant and lost, and James sat on the floor, looking at his friend worriedly.

"Hiya Sirius." Athena said softly. Sirius glanced at her a moment, before going back to staring a hole into the wall.

"Do you want to tell us what happened?" Sirius exhaled slowly, his gaze unflinchingly trained on the wall.

"They were trying to arrange a marriage. Typical pureblood crap, you two are so lucky that your from GOOD pureblood families, and not ones who force you to marry people whom you hate."

"They wanted to arrange a marriage?" James said, staring at his friend in disbelief. Sirius nodded, still not looking at either of his friends.

"They wanted me to enter a marriage contract with Druella Rosier." Athena choked on air for a moment, regaining composure after James slapped her on the back a few times.

"I know, that was my reaction too, but apparently she has a rather large dowery, and her father is rather important in that circle. Her brother Evan already took the mark." Athena and James looked at each other grimly. Evan Rosier had graduated Hogwarts when they were in fourth year.

"So what happened next?"

"Basically my mum came in and told me that the Rosiers were downstairs and to tidy myself up so I could meet my future bride, and I kindly told her to go to hell. So she ran out and got my father who came in and demanded that I go downstairs, and I told him that there was a better chance of the Giant Squid being elected Minster for Magic next term. So he Crucio'd me."

Athena and James winced, the Cruciatus curse was the worst curse in the entire wizarding world in their opinion. In inflicted unbearable pain on the receiver, and could kill a person by suffocating them from screaming so hard and so loud. It was the cruelest form of torture known to man, more than a few people had gone insane after exposure to it.

"So Mr. Rosier heard all the commotion and came upstairs, and I told him to go fuck himself, and he and my father started arguing about how there couldn't be a deal if I was going to be so uncooperative. So while they were distracted I packed all my things and ran out the door, but not before telling Druella that I wouldn't marry her in a million years, not for all the tea in China, and my mother came down screeching about how I was a blood traitor and that I was no son of hers, and then she blasted my name off the family tree, and my father told me that I better not show my face around their home again because as far as they were concerned I hadn't ever been born. So I told them that they were the scum of the earth and that they couldn't drag me within fifty feet of them and to enjoy the time they spent in hell because thats surely where they're going, and then I flagged down the Knight Bus, and came here."

Sirius finished, and looked at his friends faces. They both looked shocked, but Athena looked outraged.

"I have half a mind to burst into their living room and Crucio THEM! See how they like it!" Athena growled, whipping her wand out and pacing around the room. Sirius chuckled.

"Forget about them Padfoot, they're a bunch of Slytherin scum and they'll all end up in Azkaban, and the three of us will be dancing in the streets. You'll see." James said patting Sirius on the shoulder, but keeping an eye on Athena, lest she decide to take up her threat, and run off to the Blacks, where she would get herself killed, but it was such an Athena thing to do, even if it was horribly irrational.

"I know mate, they're the worst kind of people, but they're still my family ya know.. or at least they were." Sirius trailed off, looking at the floor. In an instant Athena wrapped him in her arms, and Sirius sighed, breathing in the scent of coconut and wildflowers that always clung to her skin. It was incredibly comforting and all he wanted for his whole life was just to be able to feel that comfort with her.

"We're your family now Siri. Don't ever forget that." Athena said, rubbing his back, and for the first time in a long time, Sirius felt tears spring into his eyes, and he gripped onto Athena for dear life as the tears poured over.

James silently left the room, even though Sirius was like a brother to him, he knew that he wouldn't want James witnessing his tears, and that was more Athena's area of expertise.

Sirius slowly opened his eyes and looked around the room, he didn't recall falling asleep. The last thing he remembered was Athena rubbing his back and telling him that it was going to be okay, that she would always be there for him. He glanced around and then suddenly realized that his head was resting on her chest, and she had her arm wrapped around him, still rubbing his back, she was singing softly to him. Sirius feigned sleep, and listened to the comforting words, realizing at once that this was only place on earth that he had ever wanted to be.

About an hour later James' head peaked into the room, and Sirius sat up abruptly, as if the noise had woken him. The truth was he could have stayed there forever, listening to Athena's soft song, he'd have to figure out what song it was..but he knew it was a compromising position for him.

Athena also jumped at Sirius' sudden movement, and looked frantically around the room before seeing James' messy hair in the doorway.

"Feeling better mate?" James asked looking at his friend, deciding just this once to ignore the position he had just found them in.

"Yeah. Loads better, look I better go check out what the Leaky Cauldron has available." Sirius trailed off, and moved towards his trunk.

"What? Have you lost your bloody mind? You'll be staying here of course." Mr. Potter said as he entered the room, he shook his head at the state of it, there were clothes everywhere, along with scraps of parchment, empty candy wrappers and butterbeer bottles.

"You can't be serious?" Sirius said, an expression of pure shock on his face. He knew that the Potters took Athena in for weeks every summer so that Dumbledore could do what he needed to do, but he never would have expected them to take him on as well.

"Of course not. _You're_ Sirius." Athena said cheekily, and the men all rolled their eyes at her.

"_Sirius_-ly though" Mr. Potter began, flashing a winning smile at Athena who choked on her laughter. "You'll be staying here as long as you need. You know that my wife and I consider you and Athena the children we never had." James snorted indignantly, but Athena and Sirius grinned. "Besides, the bedroom next to Athena's is empty, so go on and move your stuff in." Mr. Potter said, and he pushed Sirius out of the room, levitating his trunk behind him.

"Your gonna stay the rest of the summer right Teens?" James asked her as they both flopped down on his bed, looking at the roaring Gryffindor lion poster that was tacked to the ceiling.

"Course I am! I've had all my foreign adventures for the year. I'll have to tell you guys all about the Caribbean, it was wonderful!" Athena said smiling. After much begging, her Uncle had finally let her go the various Caribbean islands on her own this summer, so she spent long days strolling up and down beaches, drinking Jamaican beer with the locals, and learning tons about voodoo, which was the type of witchcraft that was prevelant there.

"Ah, so thats why your tan is so dark! I still can't believe Professor Dumbledore let you go by yourself." said James, he was rather jealous.

"Voldemort has no use for the Caribbean currently, so it was safe. Nobody there even knew who he was. Oh it was wonderful though James! We really must go again sometime."

"Sirius ran away from home." Athena said as she walked into the sitting room where her Uncle was perusing a magazine. He glanced up at her.

"It's a muggle magazine, I do love knitting patterns." He said, in response to the quizzical look on her face. Athena grinned at him.

"Now, do tell me about young Mr. Black."

Athena filled him in on the story, and he looked quite outraged as she described Sirius' father using the Cruciatus curse on Sirius.

"It is a terrible shame that he's had to live with that all these years. Although I daresay he will be exponentially happier at the Potters." Dumbledore said, knowing that he was about to loose his niece for the rest of the summer.

"I'm sure of it. So, would you be terribly upset if I spent the rest of the summer at the Potters? There's really only two weeks left." Athena asked, predictably.

"I believe that Sirius and James are more in need of you now, though I will miss you, far be it for me to separate best friends in a time of need." Dumbledore said smiling softly at his niece, she was becoming exactly the woman he had hoped she would be, although a tad more mischevious then he would have liked..well maybe a tad was a bit of an understatement.

"Thanks Uncle Al! Remus and Peter are spending the rest of the summer there too, James and I reckoned it would help get Sirius' mind off of things, and Mr. and Mrs. Potter agreed." Athena said throwing her arms around her uncle.

"Thats a splendid idea! Why don't you go pack, and we'll take a trip over to the Potters tomorrow morning okay? I have some things that I need to discuss with Mr. Potter."

Athena grinned broadly at him before taking off for her bedroom to begin packing her things for the rest of the summer and the school year.

The next morning when the two Dumbledores arrived at the Potters, Remus and Peter had already arrived and the boys were splashing around in the lake behind the Potters home. Athena shouted a quick hello to Mr. and Mrs. Potter before sprinting up to her room and changing into her bikini and running into the backyard.

"CANNON BALL!" Athena called out before running and jumping in the lake, splashing Remus unmercifully.

"So I guess Athena's arrived." Sirius said to James, grinning as Athena surfaced in the lake.

"I'd say so." James replied, before swimming off to have a splashing fight with Peter.

"So, what's on the agenda for the evening?" Athena asked Sirius as she lazily floated by on a raft. Sirius shrugged and then dove underwater, popping up underneath the raft and flipping Athena into the lake.

"Bloody hell Black!" Athena choked out, coughing and spluttering as she splashed him repeatedly. "You seem to be forgetting that we'll be housemates for the next two weeks." She said grinning evily. Sirius gulped.

"Whatever Dumbledore. You don't scare me!" He shouted before promptly diving underwater and swimming off to hide behind Remus.

"Oi! Get out of here! I won't be your human shield!" Remus protested, trying to swim away from Sirius, who was holding him firmly in front of himself so that Remus would bear the brunt of Athena's retaliation.

"Are you really as daft as you look Padfoot?" Athena asked as she swam up to the two of them, Remus still struggling to get away. "It's not as if I'd let Remus get in the middle of my payback you git."

At those words, Remus was able to slip out of Sirius' grip, and joined Peter and James to watch Sirius and Athena have an epic splash fight.


	6. The Babbling Banshee of Bristol

SB6

"Where have you been! You've had me worried sick you know!" Lily said as she stomped into the compartment that Athena was currently sharing with the Marauders, all of them were looking quite worse for wear.

"Jeez, Sorry Lils' but could you do me a favor and not yell? I've got a headache that would make Voldemort himself burst into tears." Athena said, receiving snickers and then groans from her similarly incapacitated friends.

It didn't take long for Lily to put two and two together. "Oh no you didn't! Please tell me you didn't! Athena for my sanity please tell me you didn't go out drinking last night." Athena looked at her sheepishly.

"WHAT IN THE NAME OF MERLIN IS WRONG WITH ALL OF YOU?" Lily shouted, infuriated. Athena and _her _friends all winced in pain. Lily smiled in satisfaction.

"Look Lils' it was just a bit of fun.. I was at the Potters by the way. We all were, had a bit of an end of summer get together the last two weeks." Athena said, glossing over the real reason they had all taken up residence at James' the past two weeks.

"When are you going to learn to be responsible?" Lily asked, although in a softer voice. The boys looked thankful for this, but Athena looked mildly incensed.

"For Merlins sake loosen up Lily! We were just having a good time. 'Sides it's not like we'll have class or anything today, it's just a ride on the train were we can eat sweets and complain, and then totally stuff ourselves at the feast and then collapse into our beds for a night of recovery sleep." Athena rationalized.

Lily narrowed her eyes at her friend but conceded "I suppose it was better to get it out of your systems before we got to Hogwarts." She said finally "Perhaps this year you'll be less inclined to break the rules." said Lily, before she stalked out of the compartment.

"Yeah right, and Dumbledore and the Babbling Banshee of Bristol will get engaged." Sirius said, before groaning and putting his head back on Athena's shoulder, where it had been resting before Lily bursted in. Athena grinned at his comment.

After about an hour of peace and quiet in which the Marauders and Athena all took a nap, a very frightened looking first year girl knocked on the door of the compartment, before tentatively poking her head inside.

"W-Which one of you is R-Remus L-Lupin?"

"The handsome one in the corner." Athena mumbled against James' shoulder. James, Athena and Sirius had created a sort of nap train, where James was leaning against the wall, Athena was leaning against him, and Sirius was leaning against her. It was actually quite comfortable. Remus and Peter were sitting opposite them, Remus leaning against the window, and Peter sitting against the opposite wall, each had their legs up on the bench.

The girl went to talk to James, who only woke up long enough to grin triumphantly.

"Thanks love." He mumbled to the scarlet faced first year "But thats your man." He said pointing to Remus, who was still completely knocked out.

The girl looked bewildered for a moment, as if unsure how she could possibly wake up the sleeping boy. Athena felt bad and decided to throw the poor girl a rope.

"Oi, Moony. Moony!" Athena said trying to wake him up but he wouldn't stir.

"Remus John Lupin! We've got a girl here who wants to go on a date with you!" Sirius shouted and Remus stirred, looking around confused before his eyes landed on the furiously blushing girl standing in front of him, he raised his eyebrows in confusion.

"I-I don't want to d-date you!" She blurted out, turning even, if possible, redder. James, Sirius and Peter were roaring with laughter and Athena rolled her eyes. Remus' eyebrows merely went higher.

"Then what are you doing here?" He asked finally, as he looked around at his laughing friends.

"L-Lily Evans told me t-to come f-find you. She s-said you have P-Prefect duty no matter how h-hungover you are." The girl stammered before turning and bolting from the compartment, making the boys laugh even harder. Remus looked around bewildered for a moment, before shrugging and leaving the compartment as well, deciding at once that a nap wasn't worth the wrath of Lily Evans.

The Marauders, plus Athena, had felt decidedly better after the encounter with the first year, and spent the rest of the train ride pigging out on Pumpkin Pasties and Chocolate Frogs.

"Ick! Earwax!" Athena exclaimed, hastily spitting out her half chewed Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean, where it landed unceremoniously in Sirius' lap. Sirius measured the look on Athena's face before picking up the half eaten earwax bean and popping it in his mouth, chewing and swallowing it. Athena made a loud sound of disgust.

"I think I'm gonna be sick.." James mumbled from the corner, averting his eyes from the spectacle that was Sirius Black.

"You'd do anything to shock wouldn't you?" Athena said as she opened an acid pop, trying to rid her mouth of the foul flavor of the bean.

"Just about."

The sorting seemed to drag on forever that year. Athena wasn't the only one who noticed it either, even Professor McGonagall seemed weary by the end of it.

"Merlin. I think I've aged five years since we walked in the door." Athena mumbled to Remus who grinned.

"Well, you look lovely for it dear."

Athena rolled her eyes and went to say something else, but shut her mouth immediately when she saw that her Uncle had stood up and was now looking at the hall expectantly. His eyes lingering momentarily on her, she beamed at him and he inclined his head slightly in greeting.

"Now, If you'd all be so kind as to give me your attention." Uncle Al began needlessly, as the entire hall was looking up at him silently, waiting for his next words. "I have just a few start of term announcements before I can dismiss you to the comfort of your beds."

"First, Mr. Filch has asked me too remind you all that Zonko's 'Distraction Dirt' is now forbidden in the castle." Athena could have sworn that her Uncle's eyes had rested on her and the Marauders for more then a moment.

"Damn! We never replenished our supply last year!" James said angrily under his breath. It was true, the 'Distraction Dirt' had been a key element in almost all of their pranks last year. It was ingenious really, just throw a handful of the inconspicous looking dirt wherever you needed a distraction and there would be booms and cracks and fireworks and fog, efectively distracting Filch and whoever else from what they were really doing.

"No worries. I refilled all of the supplies before I left for the summer." Athena whispered, the Marauders all beamed at her, and patted her on the back in thanks.

"Also, the Forbidden Forest is ironically enough, forbidden." Uncle Al said smiling down at his students warmly. "Finally, I would just like to impress upon you the importance of love and friendship in dark times like these." Athena heard a few snorts of laughter from the Slytherin table and she glared fiercely at them, before turning her attention back to the headmaster.

"I know that it may seem hopeless, as we hear more and more reports about the missing and the dead, but take care to remember this: Give light, and people will find the way. Goodnight!" And with that the Prefects stood up, ushering confused first years to their respective houses.

"Man am I glad that I'm not a Prefect." James said, indicating Remus who was trying to heard a particularly rambunctious group of students out of the Great Hall.

"Are you sure?" Athena asked shrewdly, recalling the faint look of disappointment on his face when Remus had been made a Prefect. Athena reasoned with him that Hagrid was more likely to become a ballerina than she, James or Sirius were to become Prefects.

"Course he's glad! It would take all the fun out of life." Sirius said as he walked up next to the pair, pointing his wand at an unsuspecting Hufflepuff and turning his hair bright green, just as the boy turned the corner to go into his common room.

"I dunno, I might fancy myself a soak in that Prefect tub." Athena said as they reached the portrait of the Fat Lady. "Mooncalf." Athena said, and the portrait swung open, letting them inside the familar common room. Sirius and James looked at her quizzically.

"Since I'm not daft, I asked Moony what the password was, so I wouldn't have to hang around outside the portrait like a moron with you two, like we do every year until Remus is done with his Prefect stuff." She said smartly, the boys shrugged, accepting that this seemed to be a good enough answer.

"Hey where's Pete?" Sirius asked as he flopped down on the couch next to Athena.

"Last I saw he was talking to Clover Calain." James said, mimicking Sirius motion, but on the chair across from them.

"Clover Calain!" Sirius shouted incredulously "What's he doing talking to her? She's a beast! Probably weighs as much as the three of us together!"

"I'd be careful if I were you Sirius, Clover could probably end you in a heartbeat if she wanted to." Athena said grinning.

"Yeah.. Probably eat me when she was done." Sirius muttered as the 'beast' in question walked in, with Peter trailing behind her.

"Be nice Black." Lily said sharply as she and Remus came from the other side of the room. Funny, they hadn't noticed the two of them in there before.

"Me? I'm always nice. I'm a perfect gentleman, tell 'em Prongs."

"A perfect gentleman, always." James said, laughing at the fake innocent expression on Sirius' face.

Lily rolled her eyes "Yeah, and I'm a toadstool."

"Hey, whatever you want love." Sirius said shrugging, and for once Lily actually laughed at his humor, instead of getting upset about it. Athena beamed, she always loved when Lily got along with the Marauders.. no matter how brief those periods were.

"Well, I'm beat. That hangovers catching up with me again." Athena said standing up and heading for the girls dorms.

"What! It's our first night, we have to do something Marauderly!" James practically shouted as Athena moved closer to the stairs.

"Well then do it, you guys are the Marauders, not me!" Athena cried, just wanting to get to the comfort of her bed.

"Oh please Teens, everyone knows your the Marauderette, there's no getting out of it now!" James said grinning broadly at her.

"Yeah! and as the Marauderette, you must provide us with one good prank idea for tonight, and then we will permit you to go to bed." Sirius said regally, Athena rolled her eyes, but acquiesed.

"_mal chachimba_" She said grinning

"What the bloody hell is that supposed to mean?" Sirius asked, the rest of the Marauders were looking at her quizzically.

"It's a creole spell I learned while I was on vacation." Athena said, as she pulled out her wand at pointed it at Sirius.

"_mal chachimba_" She muttered, and suddenly two enormous antlers sprouted out of his head.

James stared back and forth between Athena and Sirius, who was too stunned to speak, before squealing like a little girl and running up to Athena, hugging her.

"Yeah, I figured you'd appreciate that one ey- Prongs."

James was too busy looking at the antlers in fascination.

"Woah. That is seriously cool. What was that wand movement again?" Remus asked, pulling out his own wand.

"Long swish, quick flick." Athena said repeating the motion.

"Hmm." He said "_mal chachimba!_" Remus pointed his wand at Peter who now had his own set of antlers.

"Brilliant!" Sirius said, trying to jump up in his excitement but found it was hard because he was rather top heavy.

"Can I go to bed now?" Athena whined, that hangover was definitely catching up. She felt like she hadn't slept in ages.

"Yeah yeah of course. I can honestly say I couldn't love you more." James said, looking at Athena like she just told him that she was appointing him Minister for Magic or something. Athena rolled her eyes and made her way up to the girls dorms.

"Wait! Teensie!" Athena heard James' voice from down in the common room.

"Damn!" She muttered, she was in spitting distance of her bed, but she sighed and turned back around to go downstairs again.

"This better be good Potter or I swear on my life I will hurt you." Athena bit out, she was beyond exhausted.

"You didn't tell us the counter. _Finite _isn't working." He said scratching his chin in interest. Athena smacked her forehead, of course.

"Naturally _Finite _wouldn't work, that's what makes it a great hex. It'll take them ages to put it right." Athena said gleefully, the boys faces lit up at this as well, and it was obvious that all five of them were imagining all of the students wandering around with antlers for an indeterminate amount of time.

"It's _Fen Madichon._" Athena whispered, not wanting anybody else to hear her.

"But it's non-verbal, so it makes it just that much trickier." She said smiling proudly. James looked so pleased Athena thought his eyes might begin watering.

"Remember when I said I couldn't love you more?" He said, Athena nodded. "Well, I've changed my mind." And he threw himself on her hugging her tightly, which was then followed by a hug from Sirius which was rather awkward as his antlers kept getting in the way.

"Honestly Prongs how do you deal with this?" Sirius said finally after he'd nearly taken Athena's eye out.

"You get used to it." James said shrugging.

"Alright I need sleep." And with that, Athena took out her wand and waved it over Sirius first, then Peter, and the antlers were gone from their heads.

After a chorus of "Goodnights!" She made her way back up to her dorm undisturbed, changed into her pajamas, brushed her teeth and put her hair up. She lay down in bed, fully intending on telling Lily about the rest of her summer, but as soon as Athena hit the pillow, she was out like a light.

"Mornin' fellas." Athena said as she slid down the banister from the girls dorms into the common room.

Unsurprisingly, the room was full of people sporting antlers.


	7. Giggler Anger

SB7

However, all of Remus and Athena's hopes for a nice relaxing breakfast together were dashed the moment the entered the Great Hall, as there was a wall of girls standing in front of the seat that Athena had occupied for five years.

"Can I help you?" Athena asked, eyes narrowed. She felt Remus squeeze her hand, a silent warning that the Professors were watching the exchange.

"Yes. As a matter of fact you can." A tall girl with an orange tan and too white teeth said with a sneer. Athena merely raised her eyebrows.

"We would appreciate it if you didn't try to put your hooks into all of the boys in the school." A short brunette with an almost overwhelmingly large bosom said, putting a hand on her hip. Athena instantly recognized the girls as Sirius and James' fan club, or 'gigglers' as she had begun calling them in fourth year, seeing as all they did when either Sirius or James was near, was giggle.

"I don't know what you mean, I mean I dated Gideon last year, but.. he doesn't even go to Hogwarts anymore." Athena said shrugging, hoping that would solve the incident, and tried to move to her seat, but she couldn't get past them. A look on the girls faces told her that James and Sirius had just entered the Great Hall. She glanced at them and they were standing behind her, arms crossed, watching the scene in front of them, bemused.

"We aren't talking about Gideon! All though we didn't appreciate that either! We're talking about James and Sirius." The brunette said, pausing on the boys names as if they were the names of dieties or something, and glaring at Athena's right hand, that was still laced with Remus'.

Athena groaned "Listen girls, there is nothing going on between myself or any of the aformentioned boys, have at 'em, I really don't care. We are just FRIENDS. And besides, even if I was dating them all simultaneously it would be none of YOUR business, you don't own them as much as you'd like to think you do. Hate to break it to you ladies, but snogging James and Sirius does not make you their girlfriends. So in the future, _I'd _appreciate it if you stayed out of my bloody way!" Athena shouted, pushing through the girls roughly and sitting down at her place at the Gryffindor table, stabbing into her toast roughly.

"What morons." Lily said from next to Athena, Athena glanced up, scowling.

"Yeah, They're so annoying! If I didn't love the Marauders so much I'd be rid of them, just to avoid those idiot girls."

"You love us too much to even consider the option!" James said beaming and sitting down next to Athena, Remus sat across from her, piling his plate high with pancakes. Peter and Sirius sat off to the side.

"Honestly. You two need to control the gigglers. I can't be held responsible for my actions if they come after me again." Athena said seriously. Her wand had was still twitching.

"You of all people should know that the gigglers cannot be controlled." Sirius said grinning.

It was true, Athena had been the focus of many a giggler attack, but she was still not interested in having to explain her friendships to a bunch of bumbling idiot girls every day.

The day was doomed from the start, first those idiotic girls blocking her seat at breakfast, then Athena's bag broke as she walked out of Charms, then Remus' ink pot toppled over, drenching him and James in thick black ink, Sirius had almost gotten his wand trampled on when he had it out and was jostled, dropping it down the stairs, and Peter had split his pants.

"I hope this isn't a precedent for the rest of the year." mumbled Athena as they all lay on the lawn beside the Black Lake, it was her favorite place to be when the weather was nice, she would always complain when they were cooped up inside too long, she needed to feel the air on her skin in order to stay sane.

"It better not be, I don't think I'll survive!" whined Peter as he sat up in the grass carefully, obviously worried that his pants would spontaneously split again.

"I doubt it. We're the Marauders guys! We're invincible remember!" James said, as he was floating blades of grass around his head. Athena grinned and gave a lazy flick of her wand, causing the grass to pelt James' face, he scowled at her.

"Did you ever think about fingerprints?" Athena said suddenly, holding her hands in front of her face, examining her fingertips closely. The Marauders looked at her quizzically, but merely shrugged, after five years they were used to Athena bursting out with random comments like that whenever she got really bored.

"No, I can't say that I have." Remus said from next to her, she glanced over at him and grinned.

"I'm just saying, it's really remarkable isn't it? Every person in the world who has existed, and will ever exist will have different fingerprints. It's strange to think that there are that many combinations to be made. I wonder if one day they'll run out of patterns and start from scratch."

They all stared at her blankly for a moment.

"I think we'd better get inside, it's nearly dinner time and apparently all this fresh air is going to Athena's head." Sirius said, standing up and brushing the dirt off of his pants. The rest of the group agreed with him and followed suit, James stopping to help Athena up.

Thankfully the rest of the week went without incident, and the small 'switch the schedules around' prank that Athena had suggested on the first night back had proved to be pretty satisfying, as it lasted for so long, but it wasn't long before Athena, James and Sirius were itching for something else to keep them occupied. Not that classes weren't demanding enough, as they were all N.E.W.T level now, although of course the classes were a breeze for Athena and James. Athena was still thanking the gods that none of the Marauders had caught onto what her future job aspirations were by looking at her class list. They really could be daft sometimes.

Three weeks into the term, Athena and the Marauders were sitting in the common room, trying to come up with their first full scale prank of the year.

"What if we charmed the words on the chalkboards to not erase for a week?" Peter said looking excited.

"We did that in fourth year Pete." Athena said, patting his arm kindly. Peter deflated. Athena always felt bad that Peter felt inadequate in the group, and she did her best to make sure that he felt equal and valued. She opened her mouth to continue to soothe his poor ego, but closed it abruptly when her Uncle's phoenix Fawkes, flew into the common room after a few third years.

"Fawkes? What are you doing here?" Athena asked, Fawkes dropped down onto her shoulder, taking care not to cut her with his talons, he dropped a letter into her lap. She carefully unfurled the parchment, and saw the familiar slanted handwriting of her Uncle Albus.

_'Dearest Athena -_

_Please come to my office at eight o'clock this evening. I have something important to discuss with you._

_Love,_

_Uncle Al.'_

"Bugger, I wonder what he's caught me at now." Athena said, passing the letter to James who furrowed his eyebrows.

"I think your innocent for once Teensie." He said laughing "Hey, it's a quarter to eight now, you'd better go."

"Alright" Athena said getting up and thought about fixing her uniform before shrugging and deciding it wasn't worth the effort. "I'll see you guys when I get back. Put your heads together, you're the Marauders! We've got to come up with something!" and with that, she walked out of the portrait hole, waving at Lily as she saw her going into the common room.

"Licorice wands." Athena said to the stone gargoyle, that jumped aside a revealed the familiar small spiral staircase._ 'He's really got to stop making the password food, it's getting quite predictable.' _

"Whatever it is, I didn't do it. I swear." Athena said, the moment she walked into the office, immediately collapsing into the chair closest to the desk. Her uncle chuckled lightly at her.

"No, so far your only infraction has been a gross disregard for the rules concerning the uniform." He said glancing down at her appearance. He shirt was untucked, and buttoned only enough to keep her decent, her tie was hanging loosely from her collar, her sleeves were rolled up, and James had nearly had an epileptic fit when he had seen her skirt. He had even threatened to draw Professor McGonagall's attention to it, before Athena kindly reminded him of Rule number 3 of Marauding, 'Never snitch.' and he had pouted for a few days about it, and had then earned himself a detention for hexing Dirk Cresswell for catcalling at her and telling her she had nice legs.

"I know you didn't ask me here to talk about my uniform Uncle." Athena said shrewdly. As much as she loved her uncle, she was itching to plan a prank and tonight was the first night they had been able to try to plan one properly. They were all so busy this term, and one of them was always doing something during the evenings, whether is was Remus' prefect duty, or James and Sirius' quidditch practice, or Athena's frequent visits for tea with her Uncle, there was always something keeping them from Marauding. They had been at school for nearly three weeks without out one of them earning detention, the longest any of them had gone in their history at Hogwarts.

"No my dear, you are correct, I did not call you here to discuss the uniform policy." Uncle Al said smiling warmly at her.

"I called you here to discuss the Order of the Phoenix."

Athena nodded "What about it, you already know I fully intend to join." Her uncle looked at her penseively, she held his gaze, she was the one person on earth who didn't could look into his eyes without feeling like they were being mentally X-Rayed.

"I am aware. I am also aware of the fact that you will become of age in a few months time."

Athena beamed, she couldn't even wait to turn seventeen. "January Second!" She said proudly, her birthday being the second day of the year was always wonderful for her, as she was always able to do things first of all her friends, well things that had an age limit anyway.

"Of course, how could I forget." He looked at her fondly "I have reflected on it heavily." _More heavily than Athena would ever know_. He thought with a sigh, the thought of putting her out there in harms way went against everything he believed, but he knew that she was already a target for merely being related to him, Besides there was the unignorable fact that she was the most gifted duelist he had seen in a very long time, she would be an asset to the Order, and he would simply have to get over his unease about it.

"And I believe that it would be best to wait until you are closer to graduation, rather then your coming of age." Athena's smile faded, and she looked thoroughly deflated.

"I know you wouldn't like this decision, but I just want you to have as much time as a kid as possible, I want you to enjoy your time at Hogwarts as much as you can, and then you can join the ranks." He said rising out of his chair and patting her on the shoulder comfortingly. To his surprise she didn't look that upset.

"Naturally, I'm eager to get started Uncle Al, but I trust and respect your judgment on the matter." She said maturely, and Albus beamed down at his niece, she could really be quite the adult when she wasn't wreaking havoc in the school.

"I'm glad to hear you say that Athena, You make me very proud." She looked up at him warmly, tears rimming her blue eyes, that were a mirror image of his own.

Athena sat and chatted with her uncle for a while, all thoughts of pranking gone from her head as they discussed what she had been learning in her classes. Athena told him about how pleased she was that they were getting my physical practice in DADA.

"Really, I should be thanking dear Bella Black for my dueling ability." Albus looked at her in surprise, and she laughed at his expression.

"I've been dueling with her since the day I began Hogwarts, and as much as I loathe to admit it, she is a very formidable opponant, she keeps me on my toes." Athena said before draining her cup of tea.

Albus chuckled "Yes, I quite agree. Our enemies rarely realize the positive effect that can sometimes have. It's good to keep you sharp. Now, it is nearing eleven o'clock, and you have class in the morning, so to bed with you!" He said smiling and led her out of his office. Giving her a kiss on the cheek goodnight.

"I trust I don't have to remind you that what we discussed earlier will not be repeated." Athena nodded.

"I mean it Athena, nobody can know of the Orders exsistance just yet, so do not discuss it. Even with James." Athena sighed, but then nodded again.

"Alright, Goodnight dear."

When Athena got back to the common room, the only person down there was Sirius, who was sitting on one of the large scarlet couches, looking intently into the fire.

"Sickle for your thoughts?" said Athena as she flopped down next to him, he glanced over and smiled warmly at her, and Athena put every effort into ignoring the flutter of her heart.

"They'll cost you more than that." Sirius said haughtily and Athena rolled her eyes.

"Okay, I'll go to a Galleon, but that's as high as I'll go."

Sirius chuckled "Good to know you can put such a miniscule price on my thoughts!" he feigned hurt.

"Start thinking of something worth my money and I'll go higher." Athena teased, and Sirius mock glared at her.

"I was thinking about how great it is to be back at Hogwarts. It's the only place I've ever really felt like myself." Sirius admitted, and regretted how pathetic he sounded the moment the words left his lips.

"Hogwarts is the best place on earth! I've grown up here, and I'm sure it's your home just as much as it is mine." Athena said leaning back into the couch and throwing her legs across Sirius' lap. Sirius smiled to himself.

"It's weird to think that we only have two years left, and then we have to go out into the real world."

"LALALALALALALA" Athena shouted covering her ears and closing her eyes. Sirius laughed again, Athena had decided she was going to flat out ignore their imminent departure from Hogwarts, and she had taken to doing that whenever somebody brought it up.

Sirius grabbed her wrists and he could have sworn he felt a small electrical shock when their skin touched, but he shook it off. "So I take it your still in denial?" He said when she put her hands down and opened her eyes. "It's going to happen though, soon. I mean you can't have really expected-" He began, but was cut off when she raised her hands to her ears threateningly, and he rolled his eyes.

"It's weird you know" Athena said suddenly, and Sirius looked at her inquisitively "Sleeping without you I mean.." She said and then wondered why on earth she would let that come out of her mouth.

"Yeah, It'll be lonely" Sirius said grinning "But I doubt Evans'll appreciate my being there." Athena nodded her head in agreement.

"It was nice while it lasted though." He said, looking reflective and Athena smiled softly. It was true, it was nice while it lasted. The first night that they all stayed at the Potters this summer Sirius had snuck into her room at 3:00 in morning, he couldn't sleep because he was thinking too much, and Athena was the only person he knew who could calm him down. So he crept into her room and found that she was awake too, almost like she had been waiting for him. So they spent a while talking and Athena hugged him as he told her all about the days he had spent with his family, and he really hadn't intended to, but he fell asleep there that night, and from then on it was a tradition for the entire two weeks, Sirius would sneak over after he was sure everybody else was asleep, and he would climb into Athena's bed and she would lay with her head on his chest and they would talk quietly until they both fell asleep. It was the first time in Sirius Black's entire life that he had shared a bed with a girl and didn't want to ruin how special it was by snogging her, and that was when he began to realize that there was something much more then what he originally thought he felt for Athena Dumbledore.


	8. A Disasterous Full Moon

sb8

_It's just because you can't have him. That's why you're feeling like this._ Athena said to herself over and over as she lay in the grass by the lake with Sirius. He was currently running his fingers through her hair, and it was sending the most delightful chills up her spine. She glanced over at him and he flashed her a winning smile, _it's easy to see how he got so many of those girls to fall for him_ Athena thought as she tore her eyes away from his stormy grey ones, trying to remind herself forcefully that this was Sirius Black, one of her best friends and notorious Hogwarts womanizer.

It was odd though, they had definitely gotten a lot closer over the time they spent at the Potters, Athena felt almost connected with him in a new and different way, and that was terribly frightening, because the last thing in the world that Athena wanted was to have feelings for Sirius, so she did what any other rational person would do, she banished those feelings to the corner of her mind, and ignored them.

"Oi what are you two doing out here?" James shouted as he walked up to the pair of them. Athena raised her eyebrow at him, she and Sirius had been coming out to the lake everyday for the entire month that they had been at Hogwarts, it shouldn't exactly be a surprise that they were out here.

"So I take it from the looks on your faces that you both have forgotten what tonight is." James said crossing his arms and looking down at them gravely. Athena suddenly jumped up, causing Sirius to look around in alarm.

"It's the full moon!" She shrieked, and Sirius got wide eyed, before copying her action and jumping up as well.

"Is Moony okay?" Athena asked as they made their way from the grounds to Gryffindor tower.

"He's alright, laying in bed when I left him. You know how weak he gets right before." James said grimly and Athena frowned.

"At least it'll be good weather for us tonight." Sirius said, trying to put a bright spin on the situation, but the look on James and Athena's faces said he didn't do too great of a job.

"How's it going Reemy?" Athena asked him softly as she entered the boys dorms. Peter looked up at her and gave a nod in greeting, she gave him a small smile. She sat next to Remus on his bed and grabbed his hand, he smiled weakly at her. Athena was the only person in the world whom he permitted to call him 'Reemy.'

"S'alright. I'm used to it now." Remus said, his voice hoarse. Athena glanced out of the window, dusk was upon them.

"You guys need to go." She said looking apologetically at Remus, before helping the boys get him downstairs and out of the portrait hole, thankfully nobody else was in the common room at that particular moment.

"Be safe!" She said, kissing each of them on the cheek, and giving them an extra strong hug, just like she did before every full moon.

"We'll be fine Teenise, We're pro's!" James said grinning, and giving her a kiss on the top of the head. "We'll see you in the morning!" Sirius called out, and with that they were gone.

"Woah! I could've sworn I just saw a stag run across the grounds!" A small first year boy exclaimed, looking out the window. Athena grinned.

"Probably your imagination my dear boy, now run along to bed, it's much too late for a first year like yourself." Athena said smiling broadly, the boy however scowled.

"You're not a Prefect!" He said, standing with his hands on his hips, looking quite defiant. Athena smiled to herself, she liked this kid already.

"What's your name?" She said putting her hands on her hips and mimicking the boys stance.

"Jake Chairly." The boy replied, "And yours?" He asked, Athena had to grin.

"Athena Dumbledore." She said with a smirk, and Jake's eyes widened for a moment, before narrowing and looking at her appraisingly.

"Alright, but your still not a Prefect." He said finally, and Athena beamed, this kid had spunk!

"Fair enough. But my good friend over there is a Prefect." Athena gesturing to Lily who was reading by the fire. Athena almost laughed out loud as a look a pure terror crossed his face, and he sprinted up to the boys dorms.

"Looks like your reputation precedes you Lils'" Athena said grinning as she sat down in the chair across from her friend, they hadn't hung out much so far this year and it was starting to bother Athena.

"Huh?" Lily said looking up from her book.

"A first year, I told him to get to bed and he got cheeky, so I told him I was Athena Dumbledore and the kid didn't even flinch, but when I told him you were my friend the kid high tailed it out of here like it was bat country."

Lily beamed "Thats great! I was starting to worry that the younger students wouldn't respect my authority.." She trailed off looking worried for a moment.

"Don't be ridiculous Lily! You strike fear in the hearts of first years all over the castle." Athena said smiling fondly at her friend, Lily rolled her eyes but grinned back.

"So, where are your Marauders this evening?" Lily asked, gesturing to the empty common room that was noticeably lacking one James, Sirius, Remus and Peter. Athena flinched for a moment before giving the customary response.

"I think they're up in their dorm, last I heard they were talking about some 'smoking hot' Muggle actress, and of course you heard that Remus wasn't feeling well and went down to the Hospital Wing." Athena lied flawlessly.

Lily's expression was unreadable for a moment "I don't think so. I heard Matt Gallagher tell Marlene McKinnon that she could go up to the sixth year boys rooms with him because they were empty." Lily said with a significant look of disapproval, but she was friendly with Marlene so she let it go.

_Damnit McKinnon! _Athena screamed into her head, searching frantically for what to say, but trying to appear nonchalant.

"Oh, I dunno then. I think James mentioned something about detention.." Athena trailed off, but thank god the Marauders were in detention so frequently because Lily took that excuse with a shake of the head and a 'when will they learn' muttered under her breath. Athena let out a breath she didn't know she was holding, that was the worst part about not being able to go with the boys, well other than the sitting and worrying, was the lying whenever people would ask about them. The worst was when James or Sirius would be in the middle of a fling, and the girl would put her brain to use for long enough to ask were they'd gone to.

"Well, it's getting late Evans, I think I'll turn in." Athena said stretching and yawning. The truth was she was anxious to get up to her room and look at the map, the boys always left her the map so that she could see when they got in and wouldn't be worrying the whole night.

She went up to the room she shared with the other Gryffindor sixth year girls, and changed into her pajamas, before slipping into bed and closing the bed hangings tightly around her.

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." Athena whispered to the piece of parchment, and tapped it with her wand, causing a real time map of Hogwarts and all the people in it to appear. Athena couldn't help but grin, she had been so shocked and awed when the boys first showed it to her. It was a really complex bit of magic, and if it wasn't so illegal, she would show it to her Uncle because he would surely be impressed.

Athena looked over to the portion of the map that housed the forbidden forest and the Shrieking Shack, and saw with a sigh of relief that the boys seemed to be having a grand old time as their dots were running around back and forth. Every once in a while the dot labeled 'Remus Lupin' would get too close to the grounds and one of the dots labeled 'James Potter' or 'Sirius Black' would push him back into place. Athena smiled down at the parchment, happy to see that at least for now, her friends where safe.

"Mischief managed." She whispered, and tapped the parchment. That night she fell asleep clutching the Marauders map and her wand.

As she did every morning after the full moon, Athena jumped up out of her bed and ran straight over to the boys dorms still in her pajamas.

"SHIT shit _shit!_" She cried when she entered the room and saw that all of the boys beds were empty, and unslept in. Matt and Marlene looked up from his bed where they were sleeping and stared at Athena like she was crazy. Athena stared back at them for moment, before gaining her wits and turning and running out of the door, back to the girls dorms.

"I SOLEMNLY SWEAR THAT I AM UP TO NO GOOD!" Athena roared, pulling the tattered parchment from under her pillow, waking up a few other girls who looked at her curiously, but Athena ignored them, because at that moment, Athena's eyes fell onto four dots, labeled 'James Potter, Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, and Remus Lupin' were currently located in the Hospital Wing. Athena looked up and saw Lily looking at her with a very obvious expression of concern on her face, everyone must have thought she'd gone mad.

"Sorry girls, I was planning on pranking the boys this morning but I overslept." Athena said shrugging. A few of the girls glared at her before retreating back under their covers. Lily looked at her skeptically, but said nothing and shrunk back into her pillow, facing the wall. Athena didn't have time to think on Lily's odd behavior, she had to get down to that hospital wing, so she turned and ran from Gryffindor tower, still in boxer shorts and James' long sleeve Quidditch thermal, and quite unfortunately, barefoot.

James Potter opened his eyes wearily, he felt like he had been sat on by a troll. He groaned a little and blinked, trying to focus, before grabbing the glasses that were on the table next to him. With his vision finally clear he could see that his friends were each in a similar state of waking up.

"NO! I WILL NOT GO BACK TO MY HOUSE! I WILL NOT CALM DOWN! YOU LET ME IN THERE RIGHT NOW OR SO HELP ME MERLIN POMFREY I'LL HEX YOUR NOSE OFF!" James looked next to him grinning, Sirius glanced over and smiled back.

"That's our Athena." Sirius said rubbing his eyes, and James noticed with a raised eyebrow that Sirius began frantically fixing his hair, because really it was only a matter of time before Athena actually hexed Madame Pomfrey's nose off.

James heard the the irritated high pitched voice of Madame Pomfrey trying to reason with Athena, and he shook his head.

"You won't let me in? FINE. I'll get in myself!" Athena shouted. There was a short silence and then he heard a cry of '_BOMBARDA!' _and the giant doors of the Hospital Wing flew open with a loud resounding bang, a first year Hufflepuff who had broken his wrist during flying lessons fell out of his bed in fear. James looked up in surprise and saw Athena standing in the doorway, the morning light was shining behind her, her blonde hair flying around her wildly. She was barefoot, wearing boxer shorts and the thermal that he wore during cold Quidditch games and practices.

"Merlin! She's gone mad! Not that she wasn't always mad, but now it's out in the open for everyone to see!" James whispered to Sirius, but Sirius didn't hear him. His eyes were locked on Athena, who was still standing in the doorway, looking like some kind of mirage. James looked at his friend inquisitively, but he never got a chance to voice what was on his mind because in that moment Athena flew in the room and threw herself on top of Remus, who had the good grace not to wince on impact. Fortunately for Sirius, nobody noticed the look of disappointment that flickered across his face as Athena passed by his bed and ran into Remus' arms.

"Remus! Oh thank Merlin you're all okay!" She said, hugging him tightly, she pulled back and James could see that tears had filled her eyes.

"Oh Athena.. don't cry. Please don't cry." Remus begged, which only made Athena hug him again, and burst into tears on his shoulder. Remus looked across the room at James over Athena's shoulder, and he looked incredibly guilty. James sighed, Remus would most likely turn this into another reason about why he shouldn't be allowed to have friends.

After a while Remus calmed her down and assured that her that he was in fact okay, and after a few moments of pleading with her to stop crying, Athena finally calmed down. That was when Athena let him go, with a watery smile, and turned on the other four. She flew at each other them in turn, hugging them tightly and shedding a few more tears, before rounding on them with a menacing look on her face.

"What the _bloody hell_ happened last night!" She shouted at James, Sirius and Peter, who winced. "Why didn't you tell me that something had gone wrong! Why the fuck did I wake up this morning to no news, and to an empty dorm room! It's a good thing I had the map because I would have torn Hogwarts to pieces looking for you!"

Athena looked at them expectantly, but none of the boys said anything. James glanced at the first year who was back in bed, but cowering under his covers, poor kid must have thought Lord Voldemort himself had burst into the Hospital Wing.

"Look I know your upset Teensie..but this isn't the time, nor the place." James said pointedly, he was the only one who'd be able to talk some sense into her in a situation like this.

"UPSET! upset! I'm not upset James! I thought something terrible happened to you! I thought you _died_ James! I'm not upset! I was fucking terrified!" Athena shrieked, her eyes filling with tears again. James sighed and held his arms out to her, it didn't even take her a second to jump into them where she cried into his shirt while James stroked her hair, assuring her that they were fine, and that it would never happen again.

"You have to promise to never scare me like that again James. You need to promise me right now that you won't die until your at the ripe old age of 115 and of course that I've already died first." Athena whispered to him. James grinned.

"Of course Teensie, but we'll have to die at the same time because there's no way I could live with the insanity that would surely come from knowing you died and I didn't." James whispered back truthfully, and Athena pulled him closer, hugging him as if he was going to suddenly be ripped away.

"Athena Ariana Dumbledore." The headmasters voice boomed from the doorway, where the now broken doors of the hospital wing were hanging haphazardly by their hinges. James felt Athena freeze in his arms, and he swallowed hard, Professor Dumbledore only used her middle name when he was really angry. Athena said nothing but buried her face into James' chest as if hoping she would fall into him, and away from the insane punishment that was coming her way.

"Athena." Professor Dumbledore said again, voice deadly low, and Athena slowly disentangled herself from James.

"What was the story?" She suddenly whispered.

"What?" James whispered back looking confused.

"The story! Why you were out with Remus in the first place!" Athena whispered looking at him like he had lost his mind.

"Oh. Fuck. We hadn't thought of one." James whispered looking around in panic. Athena sighed, shaking her head.

"Alright. I'll deal with it. You guys need to pretend to sleep until I get back so that you don't have to answer any questions, and then I'll tell you the story." She whispered, and James nodded.

"Athena!" Professor Dumbledore shouted now, and Athena stood up abruptly.

"I'm coming, I'm coming." She said, looking quite dejected. "I'll see you later.. If I live that is." Athena whispered to Sirius as she walked out, Sirius winked at her, as if to say 'Good luck.'

"I never realized how much we meant to her." James said suddenly. It had been over an hour since Athena had left with her Uncle, and the boys were feigning sleep whenever Madame Pomfrey would come in to check on them, and getting up and talking the moment she left the room.

"We're really all she has." Remus said sighing, it had broken his heart to see her crying. To know that it was him, and his Lyncanthropy that made her cry, well it made him sick to his stomach.

"Us and Professor Dumbledore." Sirius said, and Remus glanced over at his dark haired friend, who looked deep in thought. It was obviously that Sirius felt the same way about the group as Athena did, especially now that he had been kicked out of his home.

"Are you really surprised?" Peter said looking at James, who gave him a questioning look.

"Well I mean, the only way to piss of Athena is to mention one of us or her Uncle. It's been like that forever, She's protective of us." Remus stared at Peter, it wasn't often that Peter would say anything even remotely deep, half the time they thought Peter wasn't even aware of what was going on.

"You know, you're right Pete. I guess I just never saw it that way before." James said, rubbing his chin with his hand.

"Well I mean we feel the same way about her, you know that a really good way to get a rise out of any of us is to mention Athena." Sirius said, the other boys nodded, smiling. The amount of detentions that they had gotten just for defending Athena alone was enough for any one person to get in TWO lifetimes.

"Plus, it's not like if she had been laying here any one of us wouldn't have blasted those doors open." Sirius added, and the boys agreed fervently. They'd have blasted a whole in the wall if they had to.

"Awww, We all love each other!" James said in a high pitched voice, and Remus rolled his eyes, throwing a pillow at him. The other boys laughed, but Remus noticed that Sirius looked like he was deep in thought.


	9. Explainations

SB9

"I trust I don't have to explain to you why you're here." Albus Dumbledore said, looking at his niece.

Athena sighed and shook her head. She had to clench her jaw to refrain from spitting out _"Did it have something to do with blasting off the doors on the Hospital Wing?" _but she knew it would only make things worse.

"Good choice." Albus said as if he had read her mind. Athena stared up at the ceiling, she hated when he did that! She knew he wasn't actually reading her mind, he just knew her too well, better than she knew herself even.

"What were you thinking Athena?" Albus asked, taking off his half moon spectacles and rubbing his eyes, the eyes that were the exact match to her own. Sometimes if Athena focused really hard on his eyes when he was talking, it was almost like she was looking into a mirror, looking at her own eyes.

"I was thinking that my best friends were hurt, or turned into werewolves, or worse, killed." Athena said looking at him evenly. Albus sighed.

"So I'll take it that you are now not the only one in Hogwarts who knows Mr. Lupins secret?" Albus asked, she could tell that he was trying to read her, but she had nothing to hide.

"That is correct. But only James, Sirius, Peter, myself, and obviously Remus know." Athena said truthfully. Her Uncle didn't need to know that the boys had found out in third year.

Albus gave her a measured look for a while before saying "We were very lucky that it wasn't more serious. Do you know how this happened?" Athena let out a long breath of air, praying that her capacity to lie didn't fail her now, when she needed it the most.

"I'm not a hundred percent sure of what happened, As I had already gone to bed when this occurred, but from what I understand, James, Sirius and Peter had noticed Remus' continual absence, and decided to sneak down to go see him in the Hospital Wing, to make sure he was okay." Albus nodded, indicating her to go on.

"And, so they went to the Hosptial Wing, only to find out that he wasn't there. So I guess they searched the castle for him, and then decided to search the grounds, where they ran into Remus." Athena said flinching, she knew that whatever actually happened had to have been much much worse, but the flinch seemed to convince her Uncle of the truth in the story. Thank Merlin!

There were a few moments of tense silence before Albus said "Will they need to be Obliviated?" Athena looked at him curiously.

"Who?" She asked, with an eyebrow raised.

"The boys. Sirius, James and Peter. Will I have to Obliviate them for Remus' protection?" Athena stared at him incredulously.

"Have you gone mad? Of course not!" She said, quite insulted by the question. "They love Remus no matter what he is. It isn't his fault he's a werewolf, and it doesn't matter to them that he's werewolf. They're the Marauders. Together through thick and thin." Athena said proudly, she was glad to count herself among their friends, because if it had been anybody else, they would have had to have been Obliviated, but not them. Not the Marauders.

Albus looked incredibly relieved. Athena knew he felt it was wrong to go around modifying peoples memories, especially students, and _especially_ especially Athena's friends.

"I'm glad to hear it. I must say we avoided a terrible tragedy last night. Things could have been infinately worse. I can't believe that they weren't bitten, or killed." Albus said gravely, and Athena nodded. It would have been the worst thing that could ever happen. Sirius, James, and Peter could be bitten or dead, and it would have been because of Remus so he would be imprisoned, although surely that wouldn't be worse than what he would do to himself. It would have been loosing all of her friends in one evening. Her entire world could have been wiped out within a span of a few hours, and that thought rocked Athena to her core.

"So naturally you understand why I was so distraught this morning that I had to blast open the doors in order to see them with my own eyes." Athena said, but her Uncle gave her a reproachful look.

"I understand you were upset Athena" Her uncle began, but Athena cut him off.

"I was not upset! Why do people keep telling me I was _upset _I wasn't upset! I was terrified, I thought I lost them all." Athena admitted, casting her eyes down at the floor. She heard her Uncle sigh.

"I know Athena, I know, but there was no reason to blast open the doors of the Hospital Wing, or to threaten to hex Madame Pomfrey." Athena made a face, Pomfrey was a great healer, but she always acted like the Hospital Wing was Buckingham Palace and needed to be protected as such, which was ridiculous.

"What was I supposed to do! I was panicking!" Athena said, throwing her hands up in exhasperation.

"You could have came and got me, and I would have politely asked Madame Pomfrey to admit you into the Hospital Wing." Albus said looking at Athena in her eyes. She knew he was right, so she dropped his gaze. She heard him give a little 'Hmph!' of triumph.

"Alright. Alright. You win. What's my punishment?" She asked, eyes still on the floor, dreading the worst.

"You will repair the doors, write Madame Pomfrey a _sincere _apology, and you will make yourself available to her for whatever she needs your help with for the rest of the month." Athena groaned, detentions with Pomfrey were the worst!

"Okay, fine. Can I please go now?" Athena asked, she was itching to get back to her friends to find out what happened last night, and also to make sure they didn't mess up the story that she had crafted.

"Yes, you may." Athena jumped up and made her way to the door, before stopping.

"I'm sorry Uncle Al. I was just really worried." She said as her hand reached the door knob.

"I know Athena. I know. I forgive you." Came his reply, Athena smiled, and waved over her shoulder, before running out of the door, and sprinting to the Hospital Wing, ignoring the strange looks she got from students who were on their way to breakfast, because she was still clad in her pajamas, with bare feet.

"Whats going on?" Athena asked as she got back into the Hospital Wing, the boys with the exception of Remus, were all walking super slowly around their beds, putting on various articles of clothing one at a time.

"We faked sleeping as long as we could, but Pomfrey came and 'woke us up' and told us that we had to get dressed and ready for the day, and then she wanted to talk about what happened last night." Sirius said frowning.

"Oh well, tell her to bugger off. I already told my Uncle Al what happened." The boys looked at her in shock. Athena rolled her eyes.

"No. Not that you morons. I told him about how last night was the first you ever heard about Remus.. condition." The three boys nodded at once in understanding.

"Oh yeah.." Athena mumbled and turned to the broken doors "_Damnum Reparandi!_" She said, waving her wand and the doors repaired themselves. "Good as new!" She said smiling brightly.

"Come on, lets get out of her before she comes back." Athena said motioning to the door, but she stopped at the end of Remus' bed, where he was sleeping soundly, but he was sporting a new deep gash across his neck, and he looked paler and more fragile than Athena had ever wanted to see him.

"He'll be alright love. He's tough, by tomorrow he'll be out and about as right as rain." Sirius said putting a comforting hand on her shoulder, and gently leading her out of the Hospital Wing, with James and Peter following closely behind.

By the time the group got back up to Gryffindor tower they had barely enough time to get dressed before class, and to Athena's great relief, she found a note on her pillow excusing herself and the boys from their first period class so that they could eat breakfast.

"This hallway always seems so long when your hungry." Peter complained as the four of them made their way down to the kitchens.

"I know mate, but we're almost there. I can see the painting now." James said as a large painting of a bowl of fruit appeared in front of them. Athena was the closest, so she reached up and tickled the pear, jumping out of the way when the portrait swung open, revealing the kitchens that were bustling with house elves.

"Missy Dumbledore! We was expecting you!" A small female house elf with gigantic blue eyes squeaked as the foursome entered the kitchens. Athena smiled down at her, the house elves loved Athena, she used to play down here when she was a child.

"Thank you Slibby!" Athena said enthusiastically, before rushing over to the large wooden table that was down there and already covered with all of her favorite breakfast food, and the boys followed suit, each digging in and eating faster than most people would believe to be humanly possible.

"Well that took a remarkably short time." Athena said, throwing her napkin down on her plate and standing up.

"We're growing! We need our food." James said, taking another bite of toast before standing up as well.

"Come on you two, We've got a half hour before classes, and I expect a full account of what happened last night." Athena said, and marched out the door, not waiting to see if the boys were following her because she knew that they would be.

"Would you slow down?" James shouted as Athena practically sprinted down the fifth floor hallway.

"No! I want to hear every detail from last night and I want us to be able to have all the time that we can for you to explain yourselves."

James mumbled something under his breath

"What was that?" Athena shouted over her shoulder as she turned and kept walking down the hallway.

"Nothing!"

By the time the foursome reached the Room of Requirment, Peter was gasping for air, and Athena was pacing around impatiently.

"Okay. Go." She said, finally throwing herself on one of the couches. The room had made itself up to look somewhat similar to the lounge in the Potter mansion.

"What do you want to know?" Sirius said rubbing his temples, he clearly wasn't looking forward to telling the story, but he knew there was no way out of it, and judging how Athena blasted the doors open this morning, she was in no mood to wait.

"I want to know everything!"

Sirius and Peter exchanged nervous looks, but James rolled his eyes.

"Oh honestly. Alright, I'll tell it." He said shaking his head at his cowardly friends.

"So we were in the forest near the shrieking shack like we usually are," He began

"But Remus for some reason kept edging closer and closer to the school, and Sirius and I would have to keep nudging him back, but after a while it was getting really tiring and he was getting a little too close for comfort, so we decided that we would go to the other side of the forest."

Athena gasped, nobody, not even Dumbledore ever went to the other side of the forest, nobody even knew who or what was there, it was incredibly dangerous.

"What? What in the world would posses you to do that!" She shrieked, but James ignored her and continued with the story.

"It was actually going really well for a while, Remus seemed to be happy to explore a new place, he was sniffing around and stuff, and then.." James trailed off, looking at the floor. Athena looked at Sirius and Peter expectantly.

"And then.. We ran into another pack of werewolves." Sirius said, wincing.

Athena's jaw dropped open, and she stood up so quickly from her chair that it toppled over behind her.

"You must be joking." She gasped, looking at each of their guilty faces. "Merlin! You're not joking!"

"Unfortunately no, I'm not joking. We actually didn't get into an altercation with the pack, they actually ran away from us once they saw us." Sirius said.

"But, seeing the other wolves got Remus really riled up.. and he kind of turned on us." James concluded.

Athena said with her hand over her mouth in stunned silence. Last night could have and should have ended in a much worse way. This revalation had her out of her seat and hugging each of the boys tightly again.

"Relax Athena, it's okay. We're all here and were fine." Sirius said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders as he noticed that Athena's eyes had filled up with tears.

"You're all morons! This is why I should be able to come with you." Athena said pouting, and hastily brushing her tears away. Sirius dropped his arm from her shoulders and looked at her sternly.

"No. This is exactly why you aren't able to come with us. Imagine if you woke up in the Hospital Wing with us-"

"That's where I should have been! I should have woken up in the Hospital Wing with you!"

"No Athena, You were supposed to be in your room safe and sound. It'll take Moony forever to get over doing this to us, I can't imagine how guilty he would feel if he had hurt you. I know if it was me hurting you, I'd never forgive myself." Sirius said looking her straight in eye, and Athena's heart jumped for just a moment, before she tore her gaze from his.

"Fine." She said moodily, but the boys seemed reasonably pleased with the outcome, "Although, now I have to find a way to tell my Uncle that there's a pack of werewolves not that far from here." Athena said looking out of the window at the Forbidden Forest.


	10. The Revenge of Lily Evans

_A/N: Sorry it's taken me so long to get this chapter up! And sorry that this chapter is kind of short :( I had writers block for the longest time. I really didn't know what I wanted to have happen in this chapter. I'll try to get on a schedule as far as updating goes! Thank you Noel Ardnek and Jayniebop for reviewing! _

Lily Evans sat by the peaceful lake as she lazily perused her Transfigurations book. She was always getting on Athena's case to study more, but the weather was so uncommonly warm for October that she couldn't help but go outside with the rest of the Hogwarts population. She figured that if she at least brought her books out, she might be able to get some studying done, but so far she was unsuccessful.

There was a loud splash, and Lily looked up in alarm. Rolling her eyes when she saw Sirius Black in the lake with his uniform on, and Remus, James, Athena and Peter laughing hysterically on the shore, Athena was laughing so hard that James was holding her up. Lily grinned a little bit, she tried not to condone the things that Athena and her friends did, but she had to admit that sometimes they were pretty amusing. She also kind of admired the friendship that Athena had with the boys, they were all so close. Lily wondered what it would be like to be best friends with a group of boys. She knew that Athena even had her own room at the Potter Manor.

Not that Lily wasn't friendly with the boys, but she knew that they thought that she was uptight and definitely not fun to be around in the way that Athena was. Although, she did know that she would probably get sick of Sirius and James and their immaturity very quickly.

_I wonder how Athena puts up with that?_ Lily thought to herself as she absently flipped through the pages of her book. She knew the answer, it was because Athena was just as immature as they were. Lily sighed, Athena was one of her best friends but she wished that she would just grow up. She had gotten hope last year, when Athena had been dating Gideon, that she would finally mature a little, and she did. But now that Gideon was gone, she was back to her old ways.

There was a chorus of laughter, and Lily saw that Sirius had Athena upside down with a _Levicorpus_, payback apparently for pushing him in the lake. After a few minutes of dangling the laughing blonde upside down, James put a stop to it, and ran over to check on her when she hit the ground with a soft thud. As much as Lily disliked James Potter, it was obvious that he had a real soft spot for Athena. Unfortunately, he caught Lily looking at him, and he dropped Athena's arm as he was helping her get up, causing her to fall back to the ground, glaring at him. Lily blushed and hurridly gathered her things, and walked back to the castle as fast as she possibly could.

Even more unfortunate, was that just as she was passing the entrance hall, she heard two Ravenclaws from her year, Jackie Heran and Tammy Glass sitting on a bench and talking loudly about 'The Marauders' and Athena. Curiosity getting the better of her, Lily ducked behind the corner and listened closely.

"Well, I heard that Athena has her own bedroom at the Potters, so if you were to date James long-term, you'd have to deal with her over the summer." Jackie said matter-of-factly and Lily rolled her eyes, neither of those girls had a fighting chance of being with James 'long-term'.

"Thats fine. It would be worth it to be able to date James." Tammy said dreamily.

"I don't think she would be that much trouble though, she doesn't have any girl friends. She'd probably be glad." Jackie said. Lily frowned.

"That's not true, she's friends with that Gryffindor Lily Evans." Tammy said, and Lily hated that fact that she suddenly felt better because they knew who she was.

"Oh please. That's just because she's a charity case. Everybody knows that the only reason Athena and James even bother with her is because she's muggle-born and they know that she needs protecting." Jackie said nastily, and Lily felt her stomach drop.

"Yeah, that is true. That must get so tedious after a while, always having to look out for her. It's good of them to do it." Tammy said standing up and picking up her bag. "Let's go outside, Carlie Butler was in here a little while ago and said that Sirius was swimming around in the lake, I'll be he's taken his shirt off." She said excitedly, and the two girls walked, giggling, out of the hall.

Lily stood there, frozen. Was that really what people thought of her? That she was the muggle-born charity case who was weak and needed protecting? Now that she thought about it, anytime she had ever had trouble with Bellatrix or the other Slytherins, Athena had always been there to defend her, and to fight for her. In fact, that was how she evan began speaking to Athena, after she had defended her from Bellatrix when they were in first year. Had people been talking about her behind her back like that for the past six years? She felt the uncontrollable urge to run to the dorms,jump into bed, and sob until she was twenty-five.

_No._ She thought firmly. Frantically wiping an errant tear the slipped down her face.

She would not cry. She would not allow herself to feel bad about this. Besides, who cares what they thought? Lily had come here to do well in school, and that's what she was doing. She was an unflinchingly dedicated student and that was reflected in her near perfect grades.

_Damnit Lily. Not everything in life is about grades! When are you going to stop obsessing? This is why people think you're weak, because all you care about is grades. You never allow yourself to get angry, or to have a bit of unregulated fun._

A few people walked past her in the hallway, giving her odd looks, as she was just standing around the corner, nearly shaking in anger. Anger at those girls, but most importantly anger at herself. She had been so focused on doing well in school and making her parents proud, proud so that they wouldn't think that she was a freak the way that Petunia did, that she was all too happy to let Athena and the Gryffindor boys defend her. She was just glad to not have to deal with the detentions or loss of house points that their efforts usually got them, and now she was considered a coward.

_Not anymore._ Lily thought savagely. _Nobody is going to defend me anymore._

She suddenly had the desire to scream at Athena and James. She knew, logically, that they were only trying to help her. But now she was in this awful position, and she hated them for it. She dropped her books to the ground, and stormed back out of the castle, carrying only her wand, over to the lake, where Athena was sitting with her feet in the water, leaning against Peter.

"Ello Lils!" Athena said cheerfully. Lily narrowed her eyes.

"You." She said in a deathly quiet voice. Athena finally registered Lily's rage, and looked up at the redhead in surprise.

"What's the matter Lily?" Athena asked, tenatively standing up, her eyes on the the wand that Lily held out in front of her, pointed directly at her chest.

"Oi. Evans? What are you playing at?" Sirius asked, standing up as well, getting in his usual place behind Athena's shoulder. James joined him on the other side silently, looking at Lily as if she'd gone mad. Lily wondered for a moment if she had in fact gone mad.

"Shut your big fat mouth Black!" Lily said, her voice surprisingly steady, in contrast to her shaking body.

"Lily, What's happened? What's wrong?" Athena said, her voice was soft and even. Lily now understood why Bellatrix would get so incensed when they would be arguing and Athena would respond with that calm, confident voice, like you weren't frightening or worrying her in the slightest.

"I've just heard Tammy Glass and Jackie Heran gossiping about me. Saying the only reason you even talk to me is because I'm a muggle-born charity case, who needs to be protected because I'm to weak to fight for myself!" Lily shouted, sparks flew out of her wand at the end of her sentence, punctuating her anger.

Athena took a step back. She obviously had no idea what was going on. "Tammy and Jackie are idiots. They don't know about anything except for Sirius and James." Athena said smiling slightly. Lily could tell that she was trying to maker her laugh, but for some reason that only made her angrier.

"Don't belittle how I feel Dumbledore. Just because I don't have _The Marauders_ falling at my feet doesn't make my feelings any less important." Lily said viciously, and the look that passed across Athena's face made her regret it on the spot. She had looked so surprised and so hurt. But she masked it instantly, and now she was staring at the Athena Dumbledore who dueled with Bellatrix Black on a weekly basis. Her eyes were narrowed, and her wand was out of her robes in a flash.

"Oh hello Dumbledork, Mudblood. I'd been planning on teaching you a lesson today Dunderhead, but seeing you with your wand raised to a Mudblood gives me hope for you yet."

_Wonderful._ Lily thought to herself. Just what this situation needs, Bellatrix and the Slytherins.

"Don't call her that!" Athena roared, pointing her wand at Bellatrix now.

Lily, once again, stood there mutely. It was one thing to fight with Athena who Lily knew deep down would never really hurt her, but quite another to fight with Bella.

"How boring! Getting Dumbledore to do your dirty work again Mudblood?" Bellatrix said smirking. Lily wondered why she always knew just where to poke to hurt people. Then suddenly it dawned on Lily what she had to do.

"You know what Black. _FUCK. YOU._" Lily said, and with a sharp wave of her wand, Bellatrix was sent, falling backwards into the lake.

There was a collective gasp, and Lily was now acutely aware that the majority of Hogwarts was staring at her open mouthed. Athena had her eyebrows raised, but otherwise had a small smirk playing about her lips.

"Lily Evans!"

_Oh Merlin._ Lily thought in a panic, her palms sweating profusely, as Professor McGonagall tore across the grounds to where Lily and the other Gryffindors were standing. This was her worst nightmare coming true, she was going to loose points and get detention in front of all of these people!

"What in heavens name are you thinking Evans!" McGonagall shouted. Athena went to open her mouth but Lily sent her a scathing look, and a shake of the head. She had done something wrong, and now she was going to pay for it.

"I-I'm sorry Professor." Lily said, looking down at the ground. She hoped that she at least looked ashamed of herself, because she certainly didn't feel it. She'd send Bellatrix into the lake a hundred times over. She looked over at the Slytherins pulling her out of the lake. She shot Lily a look that clearly meant 'I'm coming for you.' but Lily was unfazed.

"-and I'd never expect behavior like this out of you. Twenty points from Gryffindor and you'll be serving detention with me tonight." McGonagall finished curtly, before walking over to the group of Slytherins where Bellatrix played up her shivering, and pretended to limp into the castle.

"So." Athena said, after the rest of the school population had realized that the show was over and gone back to doing whatever they had been before.

Blushing, Lily looked up at her. Stowing her wand immediately. She noticed with a jolt that Athena had stowed hers away already.

Lily opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off when Athena lunged at her, Lily was taken aback and immediately tried to prepare herself to fight her, but was caught even more off guard when she realized that the beautiful blonde was actually hugging her.

"I'm so proud of you Lily! That was wonderful!" Athena said beaming. When Athena finally released her, the boys echoed her sentiments and gave her pats on the back. Lily noted with annoyance that James was staring at her unflinchingly, with a look of renewed adoration.

"You're not angry with me? I don't know what came over me. I just heard those girls talking, and it just made me so angry." Lily said, wringing her hands. But Athena merely laughed lightly.

"Course I'm not mad at you! Everybody gets upset once in while. Yours was just this bad because you never allowed yourself to do it before." She said grinning.

"I'm really sorry Athena. I just really don't want people to think that I'm weak, and it just caught me so off guard." Lily said, nervously scanning the faces of the five other Gryffindors, worried that they would all think she was a nutter now, but they all looked happy, thrilled actually.

"Well, I doubt you have to worry about that anymore."'

"What do you mean?"

"You just sent Bellatrix Black flying into the lake in front of the whole school." Sirius said smirking, and Lily stared at him wide eyed.

"I did..didn't I?" She said incredulously.

"Indeed you did. Couldn't have done it better myself I must say." He said, pushing his hair back off of his face. Lily blushed, finally understanding what all of those girls saw in him.

"You were brilliant Lily." James said nervously. Lily smiled slightly at him. He wasn't so bad when he wasn't being an arrogant jerk, or hitting on her.

"Thanks." She said, simply, but it seemed to have made his day.

"I forgive you for being a trigger happy jerk, and in return I would like you to lighten up a bit. Especially since you just got your first ever detention." Athena said smirking. Lily rolled her eyes.

"I'll work on it Athena, you'll have to help of course, but I really feel great. It feels good to stand up for yourself." Lily said confidently.

"Oh no." Sirius groaned.

"What?" Lily and Athena said at the same time.

"Lily Evans just asked Athena to help her lighten up. There is no good that can come from this." He said shaking his head.

Athena laughed maniacally, sending James, Sirius, Remus and Peter into fits of their own laughter, and Lily had to wonder what in the world she had gotten herself into.


	11. Peppa Parker

_A/N: Sorry for the delay! My doctor prescribed me some medicine to keep me awake during the day, and it's really seemed to have mess with my creativity. I haven't been able to get my mind to focus on the story at all. So I skipped a dose today so that I could write this chapter. It may seem kind of pointless, but I thought it necessary to build up to the trip, and give a back story to a certain character. Anyway, thanks for reading and an extra thank you to those who take the time to review, it's much appreciated! Also, I've tried to upload this multiple times but FF seems to be having an issue with my document :( if you're reading this now, then that means it worked out! _

Things had been rather good since Lily's uncharacteristic freak-out two weeks ago. Sirius thought that Athena was crazy for forgiving her instantly, but Remus understood perfectly. James didn't have an opinion, simply because every time Lily walked into a room, his eyes would go wide and he would be rendered speechless for a moment. Apparently seeing her stand up for herself like that was very endearing for James. Athena was just glad to see that Lily was more confident now, she spoke out more, and most importantly, she didn't get all bent out of shape whenever they would break the slightest rules. Another plus was that after seeing Lily send Bella Black into the lake, nobody messed with her. In fact, the Slytherins had been awfully quiet, which by now Athena knew was never a good sign. But she would happily gloss over it, because that weekend was their first Hogsmeade trip of the year.

"The Prefects were discussing the idea of a Halloween Ball you know?" Lily said as Athena reached over for some jam to put on her toast. It was Thursday, and the days were slowly ticking by to Saturday, the day of the trip.

Athena groaned, she thought that the Yule Ball was quite enough for the year. She loved to dress up and dance and have fun, but the weeks leading up to the ball were always so ridiculous. Girls would be bending over backwards to score dates with James and Sirius, and it was quite sickening. There had been a major uproar in their fourth year when Athena and James had gone together, the gigglers harassed her for the rest of the year.

"Yeah. I veto-ed that proposal immediately." Remus said, with a wink in Athena's direction. She grinned, Remus was one of the only people who understood what it was like to be friends with Sirius and James around the time of the Yule Ball.

"Well that's only because well all know that Athena would have hexed you halfway to Sunday if you let that slide through." James said, taking a rather large swig of tea.

"That's not true, there are plenty of good reasons why a Halloween Ball would be a bad idea." Remus defended.

"Name one." Sirius said, jumping into the conversation.

"Well for starters, the..well.." Remus began, but then trailed off, staring at something behind Athena's shoulder.

Eyebrows furrowed, Athena turned around, and the sight of a very irritated Marlene McKinnon greeted her.

"What's up Marlene?" Lily asked, even though Athena lived with Marlene for the past 6 years, they were by no means close. In fourth year when Marlene briefly dated Sirius, she made Athena her enemy number one, and they hadn't really spoken ever since then.

"So it is true! Bertha Jorkins told me, that Cassica Mayweather told her, that Brian McOwen told Kelly Edwards that there was a vote on the dance and that it was voted down!" Marlene said, faster than Athena thought human speech was possible.

The boys blinked, all looking dazed. Lily, looked perplexed.

"What goes on a Prefect meetings isn't supposed to be discussed with the general population." Lily said looking over at the Hufflepuff table and giving Brian McOwens, and seventh year, the evil eye. Brian noticed and hastily shoved six pancakes in his mouth, before practically sprinting out of the Great Hall, much to Athena's amusement.

"Oh who cares Lily! The point is that we could have had _two _balls this year!"

Athena rolled her eyes, making Sirius, James and Peter all snicker quietly into their breakfasts. Remus however was watching Marlene as if she was talking about championing werewolf rights,or something equally important or interesting, rather than her rage that she would be forced to search for the perfect date and dress for months, then complain about her date and dress for weeks, dump her date and get a new dress, cry because she misses her date, find a different date, and wear her original dress only once that year.

"Oh come on Lily! You should try to have another vote! It's a great idea honestly. It would take everybody's minds off of this stupid war for once." Marlene said, she had now sat down next to Lily, which practically forced Athena on to Sirius' lap.

Athena frowned deeply, she hadn't thought about it that way. Although she knew that any votes that the Prefects had meant nothing if Uncle Al didn't agree with the idea, and since it wasn't happening, he must have a good reason. Athena filed it away on a list of many things that she needed to ask him at one point or another.

"I happen to agree with the decision not to have a ball Marlene." Lily said, and Athena easily caught the note of irritation in her voice, but if Marlene noticed, she didn't give any sign of it.

"But why!" Marlene then spent the next fifteen minutes trying to sway Lily's opinion. During which time Athena rested her head on Sirius shoulder and began to snore softly, she had been up practically all night doing Ancient Runes work.

Suddenly there was a loud crash and Athena sat up straight instantly, wand clenched tightly in her hand, looking around frantically for the source of the noise until she heard the boys laughing hysterically at her. Apparently Marlene had knocked over the milk jug with one of her exaggerated hand gestures.

"Jeez, are you on alert at all times?" Sirius whispered into Athena's ear, sending shivers down her spine.

She mock glared at him "We are in a war aren't we?"

The grin slipped from his face and he looked suddenly serious. _Sirius looks serious!_ Athena singsonged in her head. _Okay, it's official. I need at least three hours of sleep in order to be a functioning human being._

Athena glanced at Marlene and Lily, Marlene was now taking the pouting route, and her arms crossed in front of her, looking like a toddler who had just gotten their favorite toy taken away.

_Good luck with that McKinnon. Lily isn't about to be won over with your pouting act._ Athena thought to herself. Marlene seemed to have realized that she was fighting a loosing battle and suddenly turned her attentions to Remus, who looked flabbergasted to say the least.

"Remus? You'd be able to convince them to vote again couldn't you? You're so smart and persuasive, if anybody could get it done it would be you." Marlene said, touching Remus' arm lightly, her voice all of a sudden very throaty and seductive.

Athena and Sirius rolled their eyes silmultaneously, much to James, Peter, and Lily's amusement. Athena had no problem with using feminine wiles to get what you wanted, she had even done it herself a few times, but seeing somebody use theirs on Remus Lupin of all people, evoked a strange urge to protect Remus from Marlene and the rest of the world. It was often the way that Athena felt when the subject of werewolves would come up in class or elsewhere were nobody else knew that Remus was one himself. It made her want to take him away from the stupid wizarding world and protect him from all those stupid people forever.

"Well.. I-I don't know." Remus stammered. Across the table James and Sirius looked at each other in confusion, eyebrows raised. Lily and Athena shared a similar look behind Marlene's back.

"Oh come on Reemy, I'm sure you could do it." Marlene purred.

"_Reemy?_" James mouthed to Athena, who shrugged.

"I could try I suppose.." Remus said, eyes locked on Marlene's shoulder.

"That's wonderful! Oh thank you so much! You're a real life saver." Marlene said excitedly, before dashing off to her friends who sat on the opposite end of the table.

The group sat in silence for a few moments, before Remus finally spoke up.

"Okay, so what was I talking about again?" He said, attempting to cut up some sausages which by now must have gone cold. His movements were deliberate, but shaky and it was obvious that he was trying everything he could to appear calm and nonchalant, and was failing miserably at it.

"You were just about to tell us all of the good reasons why there _shouldn't_ be a Halloween Ball." Sirius said with a smirk.

Remus turned bright red and immediately pulled out his Transfigurations book, muttering to himself, and tried to eat his fried egg, but repeatedly missed his mouth.

Friday afternoon found James, Sirius and Athena in the empty stands on the Quidditch Pitch. The weather was still unseasonably warm, and all they needed was a thick sweater as opposed to the usual heavy cloaks that were needed around this time of year in Scotland.

It was only the three of them because Remus and Lily were currently attending a Prefect's meeting, about the protocol they would need to follow on the Hogsmeade trip the following day, Like how to report suspicious activity, and what to do in the unlikely event of a Death Eater attack, which the mere thought of, gave Athena an unpleasant feeling in the pit of her stomach. Although she rationalized with herself that the chances of the Death Eaters coming to Hogsmeade to terrorize teenagers was pretty slim, the thought of any of the younger students getting caught in something like that made Athena feel sick. She regarded the younger Gryffindors almost as her younger siblings, and she would do anything to protect them.

Peter was currently in the Library studying with his new Transfigurations tutor. Athena and Remus had been tutoring for a while, but James and Sirius often interrupted and that made it almost impossible for Peter to focus or really learn anything, so after a while, McGonagall stepped in and set him with with a seventh year Ravenclaw.

"So what's the plan for tomorrow?" Sirius asked, leaning back against the benches, leaning his head back so that he could feel the warm sun on his face.

"Dunno, the usual I guess," James said shrugging "Did you ask anyone?"

"Yeah, I'm taking Peppa Parker." Sirius said, opening one eye to gage James and Athena's reactions.

Athena raised an eyebrow "The same Peppa Parker who told you that you'd better sleep with one eye open after she completely destroyed your dorm room?"

That argument with Peppa had been historic. Sirius would usually date a girl for a few weeks, and during that time he would act as if he was really into them, and who knows maybe he was, but after a certain amount of time, usually a maximum of six weeks, he would get disinterested and basically tell them to bugger off.

Most girls took it badly, but they reacted by crying and looking depressed for a few months, but Peppa Parker.. well Peppa Parker went mad.

She reacted at first by not accepting the fact that they were over, and would simply keep coming around the way that she would when they were dating. Until Sirius had to blatantly tell her to her face that he wasn't interested anymore and that she needed to leave him alone. At which point, she broke into the Gryffindor common room, found her way to the boys dorms, and like a tornado, destroyed everything in her path. When Matt Gallagher came rushing down to the Quidditch Pitch and told the Marauders and Athena that some crazy girl was tearing apart Sirius' stuff, the five of them sprinted to Gryffindor Tower, where they found Peppa.

Peppa then proceeded to call Sirius every name in the book, she was getting so hysterical that Alice Mason and Claudia Spinnet, two seventh year Gryffindors needed to physically drag her out of Gryffindor Tower, but not before she yelled out that Sirius had trouble..performing. Which was incredibly embarrassing for him, especially since everyone in Gryffindor who had gathered at the commotion, heard it.

Sirius of course needed to dispel that rumor, quickly, so he sought out Kelly Quinn, a giggler and notorious gossip, and shagged her. She of course bragged about it to everybody, and just like that the rumor was dead.

But Sirius was very vocal about his hatred for Peppa, and she for him, so this was quite an interesting turn of events.

Sirius looked a bit sheepish, as Athena and James studied him with unconcealed shock.

"The very same. We talked out our differences, and she seems to be a lot less crazy now. Plus did you see that she changed her hair color? She looks really hot as a blonde." Sirius said, Athena made a face. Peppa's over processed hair had been the the talk of the school for a little while, because you don't go from black hair to blonde without stirring up some attention, which Athena was positive was Peppa's intention in the first place.

"Her hair isn't even blonde, it's practically orange." She said rolling her eyes. James nodded in agreement.

"Oh well excuse me Athena queen of the blondes." Sirius said grinning.

"What are you guys going to do tomorrow?" James asked, still eyeing his friend skeptically.

"I'm not sure yet, she'll probably want to go to Puddifoots." Sirius said, Athena made a gagging noise.

Madame Puddifoot's was awful in Athena's opinion. It was where all of the girls wanted the boys to bring them on dates, a tea shop with lace table cloths and floral furniture, yuck. Definitely not Athena's taste. Gideon had offered to bring her there on their first trip to Hogsmeade together and Athena had laughed out loud. She wouldn't be caught dead in Madame Puddifoots tea shop.

"Did you ask anybody Prongs?" Sirius asked, he was obviously keen on steering the subject of the conversation away from Peppa.

"Nah." James said shifting uncomfortably on the bench.

Sirius shot a look at Athena who grinned.

"So by 'nah' you mean, you asked Lily again?" Athena said.

James scowled at her, but relented nodding silently, his cheeks slightly red.

"Whatever. I'd rather just go with you, Remus and Peter anyways." James said huffily, looking out at the Quidditch Pitch. Athena wondered if he was finally realizing that he would probably never date Lily Evans.

"Aw, that's what I figured" Athena said grinning, and ruffling his hair. He mock glared at her, but finally relented into a smile.

"I'll probably just do the usual, hang out with Peppa for a while and then meet up with you lot at the Three Broomsticks."

Athena and James nodded, that was the usual plan whenever one of them would be on a Hogsmeade date. They would spend the first half of the day with their date and then leave them with their friends so that they could meet up with the rest of the group.

"Oi, I think I see Moony and Pete coming along." James said, squinting at the pathway from the castle, and a few minutes later Remus and an out of breath Peter appeared in the stands.

"Hey Prongs. Athena." Remus said, they both waved in greeting "Padfoot, McGonagall wants you in her office now."

Sirius looked stricken "What? Why?"

Athena gave him a look "Are you joking? She blatantly caught you trying to sell those so called beautifying charms to the first year Hufflepuffs."

Sirius grinned "Brilliant isn't it? Just tell them that's how I got my stunning good looks and they fork over the galleons."

"Horrible Sirius. You mean Horrible. Taking advantage of young children." Athena admonished.

"Oh please. Besides it's for the good of the Marauders, every sickle I make goes right into the prank fund."

"Padfoot, You really ought to get down there. She looked pretty angry." Remus interjected, knowing that Athena and Sirius could go back and forth about it for days if left to it.

"Alright alright. I'll see you all later." Sirius waved as he left and James and Peter saluted him as if he was about to face a firing squad.


	12. Complications

_A/N: Thanks to those who took the time to review, and of course thank YOU for taking the time to read my humble story! I felt so bad about the inexcusable time lapse between my last two stories, that I really put my mind to work so that I could get this one out for you as soon as possible! Thanks again for taking the time to read, as a first time 'author' it's always a bit surreal to see that people like my story enough to favorite it or put it on their watch list. You guys are awesome!_

"Athena! Would you hurry up!"

James' voice carried up the girls staircase and into the dorms, where Athena was hurriedly pulling on a pair of jeans. She had unfortunately forgotten to set her alarm this morning, and Lily was nowhere to be found, so Athena woke up fifteen minutes ago, and after a record breaking shower, she was now trying to get dressed and ignore James' impatient yelling.

"Oh keep your hair on James, I'll be down in a minute!" Athena shouted back, grinning as she heard Remus and Peter's chuckles and James sniff indignantly.

She finished tying the laces on her trainers and waved her wand over her hair, drying it instantly into long loose waves, before running out of the dorm and sliding gracefully down the railing of the staircase, landing on her feet in the common room, nose to nose with James.

"Alright, lets go." She said, pushing James out of her way gently, and motioning to Peter and Remus who were sitting on the couch, in fits of silent laughter at the expression on James' face.

"Is she always like this when you go to Hogsmeade?" James asked, rubbing his shoulder exaggeratedly where Athena pushed him aside. James usually had dates for Hogsmeade trips, and would meet up with the rest of the group after they had already arrived at the village.

"No, she's not usually late if that's what you mean." Remus said, and the group walked out of the portrait hole together.

"Yeah, I'm usually very punctual, since if my alarm doesn't go off, Lily's there to wake me up, but she wasn't around this morning."

"She wasn't? Where was she?" James asked, suddenly very interested.

"Erm- I don't know.." Athena muttered, trailing off.

Remus gave her a reproachful look, because three days ago he, Athena and Lily had been studying in the Library when Amos Diggory approached them and asked Lily if she would like to go to Hogsmeade with him, and she accepted.

Athena shrugged, she knew that the moment James found out that Lily was on a date, he would get all quiet and angry, and she didn't see the point in rushing that.

"Oh well. Since you were late this morning we'll have to eat in Hogsmeade, the Three Broomsticks will probably be serving brunch." James said, his mind switching tracks.

Athena nodded enthusiastically, happy for the change in conversation, and the four of them made their way from the castle to Hogsmeade with cheery conversation.

"Lets head to the Three Broomsticks!" Peter said, as they arrived in the village. The small pub usually filled up with students rather quickly, so the group was very pleased when they went inside and found a table open.

After placing their orders ("Four butterbeers, 8 slices of toast, three eggs, and some sausage please.") They sat down at the table.

Everything was going quite splendidly and Athena and the boys were having a rather loud and passionate argument with some seventh years about the legitimacy of the Chudley Cannons as a team, when James suddenly stopped, mid sentence and was staring, open mouthed at the door.

"Ah. Crap." Athena muttered, and Remus nodded, edging his chair closer to James, lest he get up and throw himself and the couple that had just walked in the door.

Lily and Amos Diggory, awkwardly hand in hand, made their way over to the table.

"Hi guys! It seems like everywhere else is full, do you mind if we sit with you?" Amos asked enthusiastically. Lily looked at him in horror, it was clear that the last thing she intended to do on her date to Hogsmeade, was spend time anywhere near James Potter.

"Uh..Sorry Amos we're kind of-" Athena began, but James surprised everybody but cutting her off.

"No, No, not at all. Have a seat!" James said with a wide, fake smile plastered on his face.

"Thanks mate." Amos said gratefully, and held out a chair for Lily, before making his way back to the bar to order their drinks.

"What are you doing Potter?" Lily hissed. Remus and Athena looked frantically back and forth between their two friends, unsure of what might happen. Death Eaters over taking the village? That they could handle, but Lily Evans and James Potter, that was a whole different story.

"What ever do you mean Evans. I'm just being nice." James said, flatly. Lily flinched at the use of her last name.

She opened her mouth to retort, but Amos was back in hearing range, so she remained silent, shooting a glare at James every few seconds.

So, the five Gryffindors sat in an uncomfortable silence while Amos Diggory chatted away, apparently unaware of the tension between his classmates.

They went on like that for nearly a half hour, each of them taking turns giving non-commital grunts every time there was a pause in Diggorys speech, until finally Lily couldn't stand it anymore.

"Okay Amos, Lets go! I really want to see what they got in at Honeydukes!" Lily half yelled, standing up abruptly, with an almost maniacal expression on her face.

Diggory looked at her confused for a moment, before shrugging and standing up as well. He bade the group goodbye, and the pair of them pushed their way through the crowd were out of the door in a matter of seconds.

"What the bloody hell was that about James?" Athena asked, as soon as the door to the pub shut.

"What do you mean? I was just being nice." James said shrugging, and if Athena didn't know better, she might have believed him.

James must have seen their skeptical looks, because he explained,

"I've tried everything I can think of to get Evans to fancy me since I was twelve years old, and it's clearly not working. So, I'm done."

Peter, Remus and Athena all exchanged puzzled glances, this was the last thing they were expecting.

"So you don't care about Diggory and Evans at all?" Peter asked tenatively.

"No. I don't care about them at all." James said, and again, if Athena didn't know him so well, she might have believed him.

"Oi, Longbottom! Hagrid would make a better beater than ones the Cannons have got!" James shouted, starting the conversation from before over again.

Athena, Peter and Remus joined in the conversation like before, but they kept giving James appraising glances.

"Alright alright Frank, the Cannons have a chance of winning the cup if they get three new chasers, two new beaters, another keeper, and another seeker!" Athena said, as she and the boys got up from the table at the Three Broomsticks.

"That's the entire team Dumbledore!" Frank Longbottom said, trying to look serious but he kept grinning.

"I know!" Athena said laughing, and ducking out of the pub in between Remus and James before Frank could catch her.

"Honestly, a Cannons fan! I don't know how Alice puts up with it." Athena said grinning "Alright, how about Zonko's?"

After a unanimous yes, the group made their way to the small joke shop and loaded up on supplies before heading to Honeydukes.

"They should be gone by now right?" Athena whispered to Remus as James and Peter walked ahead of them.

"Yeah, I hope so at least." Remus said, looking unsure as he scanned the bustling sweet shop that was practically overflowing with Hogwarts students.

After looking around the shop anxiously, it was obvious that Lily and Diggory weren't there anymore, so the group spread out to peruse the newest confections that Mr. Honeyduke had in stock.

"Have you tried the new acid pops? They're wonderful if you like sour things." Matt Gallagher said to Athena as she looked over a particularly enticing display of jelly worms.

"I've got some right here." Athena said grinning, and holding up three vibrant green lollipops. She wasn't particularly fond of sour things, but she'd try anything once.

"Oh Athena there you are! I've been looking for you guys all over!" Marlene said, rushing over to Athena and Matt, who were both looking at her quizzically.

"You have?" Athena asked, the surprise was evident on her face, but Marlene glossed over it.

"Well of course! Remus and I still have time to make one final appeal and I thought we could get to work on it!" Marlene said cheerfully, and Athena groaned, exchanging a discreet eye-roll with Matt. Even though he was her boyfriend, he seemed to think Marlene's crusade for another Ball was a bit much.

Marlene had been popping up at the most random of time to whisk Remus away in order to work on the apparently very complicated task of appealing a decision made by the Heads and the Prefects. It had only been two days since she had approached Remus with the task of getting her a Halloween Ball, but since then she had appeared in the common room, or the library or the Quidditch pitch, and pulled a very confused looking Remus by the arm, talking a mile a minute. The glazed expression on his face as he stared at her made it very plain to everybody except Marlene, that he wasn't listening to a word she was saying.

"Oh, well, er- Remus is over by the chocolate bars with James." Athena said, gesturing to a large wall that had every chocolate combination imaginable in bar form. From chocolate and caramel, to chocolate nougat with newt.

"Wonderful! I'll catch up with you later!" Marlene said cheerily, and set off at a determined pace towards Remus, who looked more than mildly surprised to see her heading his way.

Matt and Athena chatted for a few moments, until James walked over looking thoroughly disinterested in the conversation that he just extracted himself from.

"Merlin. That was awful!" James said, pretending to clutch his heart in agony.

"That bad huh?" Matt said grinning and raising an eyebrow.

"Yes! As I left she was raising the idea of having a student strike if Professor Dumbledore doesn't let them have the Halloween Ball. Is she always like this?"

"Nah, it's not usually this bad. I think it's just cause Halloween is so close she's getting a bit fanatical.." Matt trailed off, looking at Marlene who was talking very animatedly with lots of wild hand gestures.

"She has gone a bit mad hasn't she?" Athena muttered, almost laughing out loud at Remus' thoroughly bewildered expression.

"Oi, Gallagher have you seen Sirius around? He's supposed to meet up with us after his date with Parker but he never showed up." James said, sneaking a worm from the display and popping it into his mouth.

"Blacks on a date with Parker? Peppa Parker? Merlin, well good for her I suppose." Matt said, rubbing his jaw. Athena grinned, nodding as if to say that she understood his shock at this development. "I haven't seen him, but you could ask her brother Peyton, I saw him leave here not too long ago."

Peyton Parker was a seventh year Hufflepuff, and the mild and meek brother of the crazy Peppa Parker. Peyton and Peppa could not be any more different, where Peppa was short, thin and demanding, Peyton was tall, sturdy and quiet.

"Alright thanks Matt, We'll do that." James said, throwing a few galleons on the counter to pay for his candy. Athena followed suit, and after a rather complex extraction from Marlene, Remus, Peter, James and Athena were on their way.

After a walk by of Madame Puddifoots, the group determined that Sirius wasn't there, and quickly fled the front of the tea shop before the thickly perfumed air from inside could reach their noses.

"I wonder where he's gotten to, he doesn't usually miss meeting up with us, even if he is snogging his date." Peter said, scratching his head and looking around the busy town square.

It was getting a bit late and the Hogwarts Professors were making their presence known again, a signal to the older students that it was time to quickly finish up and begin heading back to the castle.

The group spent the next quarter hour searching for Sirius in every place they could think of, the owlry, the apocathary, the book shop, and even the shrieking shack, but he was no where to be found.

Just as Athena was starting to get worried, the group came upon Peyton Parker and his friends making their way back up the drive to Hogwarts.

"Peyton! Peyton! Have you seen your sister?" Athena asked, rushing up to the tall dark eyed boy.

"Yes actually, She and Black left hours ago to go back to Hogwarts." He said, like everybody else, the surprise was evident.

"Thanks mate." She said grinning, and turned back to James and Remus, Peter had stayed back to walk with Aggie Clint, the newest girl he was trying to woo.

"Peyton says the two of them left Hogsmeade ages ago to head back to the castle." Athena said, and she was met with raised eyebrows.

"Really? What a git. He could have at least told us." James said shaking his head.

Athena frowned, hoping that this wasn't going to be an indication of what life with Peppa and Sirius was going to be like, for the near future at least.

When the group got back to the castle it was nearly four, and after a brief chat with some sixth year Ravenclaws about what they thought would be on Mondays Charms exam, they headed up to Gryffindor tower to drop off their packages.

"Maybe we can get a quick fly about in, the lights still good." James said as they entered the common room, and Athena nodded in agreement enthusiastically.

She was definitely not Quidditch team material, but she did really enjoy flying, and James had given her quite a few compliments on the way that she handled herself on a broom.

"If only you could fly that well _and_ play keeper at the same time." He would often say, it was the truth, Athena was a rather gifted flyer, but when it came to combining flight and Quidditch skill, a hinkypunk on a broom would be more efficient.

"_Accio Brooms!_" Athena called out, and in an instant two brand new racing brooms flew from the opposing dormitories. Both of them gifts from Mr. and Mrs. Potter for christmas the previous year.

The two brooms flew towards Athena and James, and they each caught their respective brooms effortlessly (the tail end of James' broom nearly taking out a first years eye in the process).

"I wish I knew how they manage to make _everything_ look so bloody cool!" A third year boy whispered loudly to a friend, who was staring at James in awe.

"It's an artfully crafted illusion." Sirius said, grinning widely as he gracefully swept into the common room.

The two thirteen year olds seemed stunned to the point of speechlessness by the simple fact that THE Sirius Black had addressed one of them, and after a moment of looking at the two boys peculiarly, Sirius seemed to accept the fact that he wasn't going to get a response, and turned to his fellow Marauders, leaving the third years to scamper away behind his back.

"Where have you been? We looked all over for you Padfoot." Remus said, there was a reproachful edge to his voice.

At any other time Athena, Remus, James and Peter would have laughed off a situation like Sirius disappearing with a girl, but in these dark times, it was easy to let your mind run away with all of the horrible things that could happen to a blood traitor with an entire house full of enemies.

"Sorry mate. Peppa got a bit er- ahead of herself." Sirius said, but offered no more enlightenment on the situation.

Athena and James cast each other quizzical looks, but decided that for now, it was best to leave well enough alone.

Athena wondered idly what it might feel like to have Sirius Black so enthralled with you that he completely forgot all about his best friends, and everyone else in the world, just because you 'got a bit ahead of yourself'. but the more she thought on it, the more she realized that all of that was well and good and probably very thrilling, but at the end of the day Sirius would always leave them, no matter how interested he seemed, it was as if nobody was good enough for him. He held girls to some unknown standard, and as soon as they broke whatever mold he had worked out in his head, he was gone.

Although, Athena had to admit that he had been much more tame this year, as far as dating went at least. He only had one or two 'dates' and each of them didn't go beyond that night. Which Athena very secretly appreciated, because they had gotten much closer and she would be incredibly sad to loose that closeness to one of those banshees.

"_Hello?_ ATHENA! Anybody in there?" James practically shouted, snapping his fingers in front of Athena's eyes, which blinked rapidly back into focus.

"Huh? What?" Athena asked, glancing around at her friends who were all eyeing her as if she had just grown another head.

"We've been trying to get your attention for nearly two minutes there, love." Sirius said smiling slightly at the bewildered expression on her face.

"Oh right. Well are we going or not?" Athena demanded, making her way to the portrait hole, trying not appear as flustered as she felt. Apparently she was convincing because none of the boys seemed to give her a second consideration.

"Of course!" James said excitedly "Race you!" He shouted, and within seconds he blew past Athena out of the portrait hole, towards the Quidditch pitch.

"Oh no you don't James Potter!" Athena shouted and sprinted after him for a while, before ditching the effort and hopping on her broom, laughing maniacally as she soared over his head and out of the castle.

"It's a good thing her uncle is the headmaster, because she'd have been expelled at least nine times today alone." Peter said to Sirius and Remus, practically beaming. He always thought it was great fun when he got to see the outrageous things that Athena, James and Sirius were willing to do.

Sirius and Remus nodded in agreement, and the three boys set off behind James and Athena, following the sound of her excited laughter as it bounced off of the walls, seemingly casting tiny rays of happiness on everything it touched, and after the marauders were finally out onto the grounds, there was a crowd of smiling, happy people in their wake.

Looking up at Athena, blonde hair streaming out behind her, catching the golden-pink light from the sunset as she soared after James who had mounted his broom shortly after she did, Sirius realized something, something that would change his life forever, he was in love with Athena Dumbledore.

"_Well.._" He thought to himself "_That certainly complicates things,doesn't it?"_


	13. A Turnaround

_A/N: Hey guys! It appears I'm the worst author ever! :( I'm SO SO SO SO sorry about my apparent abandonment of this story, I really didn't mean it that way, but shortly after I posted my last chapter I was given the opportunity to travel out of the country, and when I returned I found out my sister is expecting, and it's been incredibly hectic around here. Anyway, I have never forgotten Athena, and I hope you guys are still so receptive to her, even though she has been unfairly neglected for so long._

Athena and Sirius sat together at the Gryffindor table for lunch. Things had changed a bit in the days following the Hogsmeade trip, starting with James and his new 'No Lily Evans' policy, which meant that wherever Lily Evans showed up, it was a garuantee that James Potter would not be there. Which was of course, quite annoying to the rest of the group because it meant that more times than not, James would be off with one giggler or another. Athena however, was the only person who noticed the hurt and confused expression that would cross Lily's pale features every time she would walk into a room, and James would swagger out, with his arm around whichever girl happened to be closest.

Marlene had been commandeering Remus more and more often, much to Matt Gallaghers obvious annoyance, in fact Remus and Marlene were currently sitting next to each other, heads bent over a piece of parchment, whispering quickly back and forth about whatever strategy Marlene had dreamed up for what must have been their fifth or sixth appeal. In the back of her mind, Athena wondered if Remus' feelings would be hurt once Halloween was over and Marlene inevitably went back to whatever it was that she did all the time.

Lily, now spurred by James' uncharacteristic rejection of her presence, was making herself scarce around the Gryffindors, and she chose to spend her time with a group of Ravenclaw girls and rumor had it, with Amos Diggory.

Peter, by the grace of gods had finally found himself a girlfriend. Molly Orange, a short and very curvy fifth year Hufflepuff had become quite taken with him, and he spent all of his time at the Hufflepuff table, or out and about with Molly.

So, Athena was incredibly relieved when the new relationship that Sirius had begun with Peppa Parker, didn't seem to cut into their time at all. In fact they were spending more time together than ever, they sat together in classes, they ate together, they did homework together. A year ago Athena would have thought that she would have gotten sick of being with Sirius all that time, but somehow, it worked. She enjoyed spending time with him, and they got along better than ever before. Sirius had apparently decided to drop the invincible act around her, and he even began sharing bits and pieces about his life with his family. Which Athena felt rather privileged to know about because she knew that even James had a hard time getting information about what Sirius went through every summer.

But, as much as Athena was enjoying her time with Sirius, she missed the other boys, and finally she had enough.

So she wrote an anonymous note to James, Sirius, Remus and Peter all to meet at the room of requirement one night, and waited for them to show up.

"What are you doing here?" Athena heard James' voice ring out in the hallway.

"I got a note saying to come here." Remus said, but by the tone of his voice, Athena could already tell that he had figured it out.

"Oi! What are you guys doing here?" Sirius said, joining the other two in the hall.

"We dunno, we all got these notes to be here." James said, and Athena could see him in her head, shrugging and pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose like he always did.

"Hey guys. What's goin' on?" Peter's voice finally appeared, always the last one to arrive.

Athena waved her wand at the door, slowly opening it, and the four boys crept inside the room slowly.

"HIYA!" Athena shouted, jumping up from behind a convienetly placed couch. Doubling over with laughter when each of the boys nearly jumped out of their skin.

"What the hell are you playing at Athena, we could have hexed you!" James shouted, shoving his wand roughly back in his pocket.

"Sorry." Athena said kind of sheepishly.

"What's all this 'Thena?" Sirius asked, sitting down on the couch that she had just jumped out from behind. Athena sat down next to him, and the rest of the boys followed their lead, sitting on various pieces of furniture that were scattered around the large room.

"I just wanted to call it to your attention that this is the first time that we have all been together since Hogsmeade." Athena said, frowning.

"What? That can't be right." Remus said scratching his head in thought.

"It is! Blimey, I'm sorry Teensie." James said.

Athena shrugged "You don't have to apologize, it's just strange is all. I don't like it."

James gave her an appraising look, he knew deep down that Athena was probably more attached to group than she would ever let on. He thought a lot about how protective Athena was over practically everything that she held dear, from himself and her uncle, all the way down to the Gryffindors and some other first years. Sirius had told him once a while ago that he reckoned that Athena was so protective because she was afraid they would be ripped away from her, much like her parents were when she was a baby.

Sometimes James had to remember that the happy, strong and sometimes argumentative girl that he saw all the time wasn't the only side there was to Athena.

"I'm really sorry Athena, I've been so focused on not being around Evans, I didn't realize I wasn't around you either." James said, and he stood up and wedged himself in between Sirius and Athena.

Sirius frowned, an accurate depiction of his life indeed.

James moved to put his arm around Athena, knocking Sirius off of the couch. Sirius sent him a halfhearted glare, before taking the seat next to Remus.

"Yeah Athena, we're sorry too. I've just been so occupied with all of stuff for the Halloween Ball.." Remus trailed off.

Athena raised an eyebrow "Yeah..How's that coming along?"

"It's coming along okay I guess. I never imagined that Marlene would be so focused and persistent on something, but I'm afraid that it's probably for nothing."

"Just be glad you're not Gallagher. He's got to deal with her all the time." Sirius said grinning.

Athena rolled her eyes "Honestly, If she put half as much time into her school work she would be at the head of the class."

"Ick. That was such an Evans thing to say." James said, making a face.

Athena frowned, she was hoping that his 'hatred' of Lily would have passed by now, but rather unfortunately, it only got stronger every day that there was a new rumor about her and Diggory.

She opened her mouth to dispute what James had said, but Sirius sensing this, rapidly changed the subject.

"Hey, I never told you guys about the new spell I learned, It's supposed to make a person inflate to twice their size!"

After Athena's talk with the boys everything went basically back to normal, although James still blatantly refused to be around Lily.

"I don't understand why he's acting like this!" Lily finally screeched after James promptly left the library when she entered it.

"I've rejected him at least a hundred times, why does it finally matter!" She said as she threw herself down in one of the libraries old and rather rickety wooden chairs.

"Miss Evans, Please! Control yourself before you break Library property!" Madame Pince repremanded from across the room.

Lily turned a violent shade of red, but her embarassment was significantly lessened by the fact that she, Athena and Remus were the only ones in the Library that evening.

"Uh.. I'll let you handle this." Remus said, giving Athena a stern look, before gathering his books and parchment and marching out the door.

He, as both James and Lily's friend, had been after Athena for days to find a way to fix the tear in the group.

"I just don't get what's so different about this time." Lily said, frowning.

"Well, look who suddenly cares." Athena teased, grinning. Lily gave her a fierce glare. "I don't know Lils. All the other times you rejected him were different." Athena said as she packed up her books, knowing that she wasn't going to be getting any more work done tonight.

"How?"

"For starters you rejected him in front of the entire school." Athena said, mentally cringing at the memory.

James had crafted an elaborate ploy to get Lily to finally say yes. He jinxed the candles that floated in the Great Hall to come together and spell out '_Let me take you to Hogsmeade Lily!'_ with an arrow pointing down to James' seat, where he was beaming and looking rather smug.

Tons of girls in the Great Hall were swooning, but Lily was unmoved, and hastily waved her wand, rearranging the candles to spell out '_NO!'_

"I've definitely rejected him in public before." Lily said.

Athena strained her memory, but eventually decided that Lily was probably right.

"But, you've never rejected him publicly, and then had gone with another boy." Athena reasoned.

A look of comprehension dawned on Lily's face. "He's doing this because I'm seeing Amos?"

Athena nodded, shrugging. Honestly, for a smart girl Lily could be so daft sometimes.

"Well forget about it then. I'm not breaking up with Amos just to please Potter. I can't even stand Potter. I can't even believe I wasted time talking about this!" Lily said, standing up abruptly and gathering her things, before stomping out of the library rather loudly.

"Merlin." Athena whispered, before cracking into loud giggles.

"Out! Dumbledore!" Madame Pince called, and Athena shoved her stuff into her bag as quickly as possible, and raced to Gryffindor tower.

When Athena got to the common room Lily had positioned herself in a chair in the far corner, she was apparently attempting to read, but she was stopping every few seconds to glare maniacally at James, who was sitting on the couch in front of the fire, having a very animated conversation with Sirius and Peter.

But, When Athena walked up to the group, James stopped talking immediately.

"What's up guys?" She asked, flinging her well worn canvas messenger bag onto the plush carpet of the common room.

"Uh.. nothing." James said, and Athena saw him give Sirius and Peter a harsh look.

"What were you guys just talking about?" She asked, narrowing her eyes.

"Uh.. nothing."

Athena crossed her arms and looked at the three boys harshly. There wasn't much that they wouldn't tell her, but when they kept secrets, it was incredibly irritating to Athena. Although that was rather hypocritical of her, seeing as she was keeping a secret as well..although the fact that they hadn't put it together yet was still baffling to her.

"Oh really?" Athena murmured, scanning each of their faces. They all wore the same expression of feigned innocence. She was about to question them further when out of the corner of her eye she saw Lily give her a signal that she had heard part of the conversation and would relay it back to her later.

"Really 'Thena it was nothing." Sirius said, cool and confident.

"Alright then." She said, much to their surprise. She stifled a grin as she saw each of the three boys exchange looks of bewilderment.

Just at that moment Marlene stormed into the common room with Remus trailing behind her, both out of breath.

"He said yes! Dumbledore said yes!" Marlene panted, before streaking up to the girls dorms. Various shrieks and screams could be heard from the stairs.

"What the hell?" Sirius asked, raising an eyebrow at Remus who flopped down on the couch next to him.

"Dumbledore agreed to the Halloween Ball." Remus said, he was smiling, but Sirius could tell there was an undercurrent of disappointment, perhaps he realized that he wouldn't be seeing much of Marlene McKinnon anymore.

"He agreed to the ball? Halloween is tomorrow." Athena said in shock, exchanging looks of pure terror with Lily, who had come from the other side of the common room and sat herself on the edge of Athena's arm chair.

"You can't be serious." Lily gasped.

James rolled his eyes, "What do you care Evans? It'll just give you an excuse to cuddle up next to your bloody boyfriend." He said waspishly, before stalking off to the boys dormitory.

Lily looked like she had been smacked across the face, Athena, Peter, Sirius and Remus all regarded each other in shock.

"All right Lily?" Athena asked, putting her hand on her friends shoulder. Lily nodded mutely. "How about we go upstairs and discuss what the bloody hell we'll wear tomorrow evening?" Athena said kindly, leading the red headed girl away from the three boys. Who were still sitting in silence.


	14. A Splendid Idea

**A/N: Hi guys! Thanks for all the positive reviews! (anon review is now ON! Thank you to The Almighty Pyro for pointing that out! I never even noticed.) There's also a bit of confusion about the end of Athena's relationship with Gideon, I probably should have been clearer, but they split because he left Hogwarts, although anything could happen ;) ALSO: There is a character in this chapter who is a reflection of a person who is seriously irritating me in real life, chances are you'll know who it is immediately! So sorry if it seems like I'm sending out seriously bad vibes, I don't really like to write characters like her, but my god I felt so much better after! ;)**

The next morning was incredibly hectic. Gryffindor tower was buzzing with the possibility that there would be a ball that night, although quite a few people were convinced that Marlene was just making it up, the general feeling was absolute panic and nervous excitement.

Athena would be inclined to believe that Marlene was just trying to save face, but that would be a pretty hard lie to pull off come nighttime and there was no ball. Plus she believed Remus. And although she had been initially against another ball she couldn't deny that all the excitement was fun, and if there was a ball, she would no doubt have a good time. In fact, this was the perfect way to have one, because what she hated the most about balls at Hogwarts was the weeks leading up to it. This way, there was none of that drama, and only the fun.

"I don't know what you three are rushing about for." Brigantia Winters said huffily as Athena, Lily and Marlene hustled around, digging through each others closets for the perfect dresses before they had to go down to breakfast.

"What do you mean?" Lily asked kindly.

Athena rolled her eyes. Brigantia had shared a dorm with the three girls for their entire time at Hogwarts and she barely said anything to them that wasn't a complaint or a put down, not that she was putting down the other girls, but herself. Athena had no time for people like that. She felt mildly bad for the other Gryffindor because she was.. overweight and incredibly awkward and often the brunt of other peoples jokes. But all the girl did was passive aggressively complain about herself and others, and Athena just didn't get down with that so she generally avoided conversation with the girl. In fact she couldn't remember the last time she had spoken to her. Brigantia had gotten sloshed at a Quidditch party last year and confessed her love for Sirius to the entire girls dorm, and after that she kind of kept to herself.

"No matter what you wear you'll all look gorgeous. I mean it's not like you have to find dates or nothin' you've all got boyfriends." She said picking at her nails.

"Oi, don't go lumping me in with them. I haven't got a date OR a boyfriend." Athena said, a bit more snippily than she had intended for Lily gave her a sharp look, but if Brigantia noticed, she didn't mention it.

"What do you mean you haven't got a boyfriend? You have four." Brigantia said, matter-of-factly.

Athena gave her a quizzical expression. "James Potter, Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, and Remus Lupin." She clarified. Athena looked at her in wide eyed shock as Marlene and Lily burst into hysterical laughter behind her.

"You're barmy Winters. They're just my friends." Athena said, glaring at the other two girls, who were red faced from laughing so hard.

"However you want to see it Dumbledore. Besides, half of the male population has been inquiring to your friends about whether you have a date to the ball yet, so I wouldn't be worried about it." Brigantia said, pulling an absolutely hideous set of dress robes out of the bottom of her trunk. It looked like a ball of grey fabric that had been ravaged by moths.

"What did you just say?" Athena asked, dropping the deep green dress that she had pulled from her closet for Lily.

Lily eyed the two girls apprehensively, not liking the way this conversation would inevitably turn out.

"Yeah. Ever since McKinnon made it clear that she wasn't going to accept not having a ball, blokes have been asking them left right and center about you. Naturally they told each one of them to bugger off." Brigantia said and if Lily wasn't mistaken, she seemed to wearing a gleeful grin, happy about bringing something forth that would cause Athena to fight with the boys.

"Excuse me ladies." Athena said tightly, and then stalked purposefully out of the room. Marlene and Lily looked at each other, before dropping what they were holding and following Athena's movements to the boys dormitory, where they stood outside the room that housed the 6th years.

"They were talking about it last night when she walked into the common room, they shut right up about it. I heard them but I didn't tell her because I knew she would get angry." Lily whispered to Marlene who nodded with understanding.

"There's no reason to tell her something like this. Gigantia was just looking to stir up trouble." Marlene said, using the cruel nickname that Brigantia had acquired. Lily frowned, but nodded in agreement.

There was a sudden explosion of noise from inside the dormitory. Lily and Marlene burst into the room to find Athena punching James with one arm, and hexing the other three with her wand in her other hand. Matt Gallagher had jumped under his bed to avoid being hit with a stray spell.

"HOW- DARE- YOU-!" Athena shouted in between punches and spells. Remus had been hit with a Rictusempra, Sirius with a rather well aimed hair-loss jinx that had him on the ground trying to gather up his beloved hair and simultaneously clutching his bald head in panic, and Peter with a nasty bat bogey hex.

Lily surveyed the damaged, wide-eyed for a moment, before rushing over to Athena and pulling her off of James.

"GET- OFF- OF- ME!" Athena roared, flailing her way out of Lily's grasp and onto the floor, where she sat cross-legged, glaring at everybody in the room petulantly.

"Finite!" Lily said, waving her wand in Peter and then Remus' direction, ending the spells.

"Merlin! Calm down Athena!" Lily shouted, giving her a fierce look. "What is the big deal? It's the same thing they've been doing since we were in fourth year." She pointed out.

Athena frowned, glancing over at Remus who was still red faced from the laughing curse, and Sirius who was staring at his bald head in the mirror. Peter was touching his face every few minutes in fear.

"I've just.. I just- What gives them the right to decide who talks to me and who doesn't?" Athena asked, waving her wand and restoring the hair to Sirius' head. Inwardly smiling when sighed and collapsed onto his bed in relief.

"Please, all of those blokes were tossers. None of them were good enough for you." Sirius said frowning.

"Oh really? and who IS good enough for me Sirius? You?" Athena asked, rolling her eyes. Her stomach giving a tiny flutter, which she quickly silenced.

James laughed "Of course not HIM. Of all people." He said shaking his head at the ridiculousness of the notion. Nobody but Remus caught the expression on Sirius' face.

"We're just looking out for you. All those guys that asked us were gits. You'd do the same for us and don't act like you wouldn't." James said looking down the bridge of his nose at her.

"Maybe I would." She mumbled, and James grinned.

"Alright, now, you're going with me tonight right?" He asked, offering her a hand and helping her off of the floor.

Athena looked at him incredulously. "What? I don't know." She answered, furrowing her brows. Since hearing that the ball would on, she had been hoping to get asked by somebody that she could actually have something with. She missed being with somebody, well if she was being honest she missed Gideon but there was nothing she could do about that.

"What are you lot doing about dates?" Athena asked the other three boys, who all shrugged.

"I haven't a clue." Remus said, Athena thought he looked a bit dejected, but she decided to think on that later. "Me either." Peter chimed in.

"I'm taking Peppa I suppose." Sirius said tonelessly, before heading off to the bathroom.

"Is he really cross about the hair jinx? I put it right. It won't fall out again honest." Athena said frowning. She knew Sirius had a serious attachment to his hair, but she had never seen him look so blank.

"I don't think its the hair 'Thena." Remus said smartly.

James looked perplexed for a moment, before apparently coming to a conclusion, and stood up abruptly. "Athena, Evans, why don't you two go down to breakfast." He said, addressing the redheaded girl in a non combative way for the first time in days. This time, nobody but Athena caught the expression of absolute glee that crossed her friends pale features.

"Yeah, let's go. Emerald Green said we could take a look at her dresses, her Mum sent a whole bunch of her new designs." Lily said smiling broadly, and led the blonde out of the boys dorms. Emeralds Mum was a designer for Gladrags, and she often sent the fifth year to school with tons of clothes to share with her friends.

"Why are you suddenly so cheerful?" Athena asked, as they walked back up to their room. Grinning when Lily turned a light shade of pink.

"Oh no reason."

"Might it have something to do with the fact that a certain James Potter isn't mad at you anymore?" Athena asked, grinning mischievously.

"What? No. Of course not. I did't even notice." Lily said, darkening to a scarlet color.

"I can't believe you gits didn't realize that Evans was in the common room last night." Sirius grumbled as he climbed back into bed, they didn't have to be down to breakfast for another half hour, and he had been up until 4 in the morning.

"Lily wasn't the one who told her." Marlene said from where she was sitting on Matt's bed. Sirius rolled his eyes, he had forgotten she was still there.

"Oh really? Then who did?" James asked sarcastically as he searched around for his tie.

"Brigantia Winters told her, she had that she had been watching you guys chase off potential dates for her for a week." Marlene said matter-of-factly.

"Ugh! I knew I hated that girl!" Peter said, rolling out of his bed.

"Yeah, you'd think for somebody so unattractive she would at least try and be nice." James said.

"Come on, don't you feel at least a bit sorry for her?" Remus asked, always the saint.

"No." Sirius said rolling his eyes dramatically "She's constantly in my business. Plus she's always gossiping about Athena."

"Well she probably feels inadequate, she lives with three beautiful girls" Remus said, his eyes flashing briefly to Marlene who grinned at the compliment "and she's less than gorgeous."

"Whatever mate." James said, before adjusting his tie and grabbing his wand off of the bedside table. "You ready to go Moony?"

"Yeah." Remus said jumping up and heading for the door with James "See you down at breakfast, Padfoot, Wormtail." He said indicating the other two Marauders who were still in their pajamas.

"Sound." Sirius said as he reluctantly pulled himself out of bed.

"Later Matt, Marlene." James said waving at the pair who were talking quietly on Matts bed, both of them waved without looking up.

"So what do you think was up with Padfoot this morning?" James asked Remus as they walked out of the portrait hole.

"I'm not sure what you mean.." Remus said, shifting uncomfortably, if his hunch was right, this was the last thing he wanted to be talking to James about.

"You know exactly what I mean. How angry he was at Athena's spell. I know what's going on here." James said, looking at Remus through narrowed eyes.

"W-Whats going on here?" Remus stammered, pulling at the collar of his shirt.

"It's obvious." James said "Parker is clearly filling his head with rubbish about Athena again." James said, looking quite pleased with himself for figuring it out.

Remus sighed in relief. "Yeah! You know you're probably right!" He said, regaining speed as they reached the Great Hall.

The first time that Peppa had dated Sirius she had gotten into his head and told him all sorts of stories about Athena and the rest of the boys not really being his friends. She had damaged their friendship because she felt threatened by them.

By the time that Lily and Athena got down to breakfast it was getting rather close to their first hour class.

"Bugger, we'll barely have time for toast." Athena said, looking forlornly at her growling stomach as the two girls made their way to the Gryffindor table where James and Remus were already 2 plates into their breakfast.

"Has Professor Dumbledore said anything about a ball?" Lily asked, sitting down next to Athena.

"No, not ye- Oi! Get your own!" James hollered mid sentence, glaring at Athena who had snatched bacon and a fried egg of his plate.

"Where are Sirius and Peter?" Athena asked, looking around confusedly. She noticed Peppa sitting alone at the end of the Ravenclaw table, glancing over at their group every few seconds.

"Dunno. They were both still in bed when we left." Remus said shrugging, and shoved his rather large Astronomy book roughly back into his bag.

"There he is, the filthy layabout!" James said grinning broadly as Sirius and Peter approached them, both looking exhausted.

"Were you guys..out last night?" Athena whispered to James when Lily was occupied with a conversation with Marlene who had appeared with Matt sometime ago.

"Nah, you know we'd come get you." James said with a wink. "I know Peter was up late doing the essay for McGonagall."

Athena nodded, and was about to ask what Sirius had been up to that he was so tired, but at that moment her uncle stood up and cleared his throat. The noisy hall fell silent, and everybody turned to focus on the headmaster.

"Now, there have been some rumors and speculation that there may be a Halloween Ball in addition to this evenings feast." Professor Dumbledore began, and the entire school was sitting on the edge of their seats.

"I have considered it greatly, and thanks to a certain pair of dedicated students-" Dumbledore paused, looking pointedly at Marlene and Remus, who both blushed.

"-I have decided that a Halloween Ball is an absolutely splendid idea!" He finished, smiling, and the hall broke out into applause and cheers. Suddenly everybody was scrambling to figure out what to wear, and who to go with.

Dumbledore cleared his throat and the hall fell silent again, excited tension filling the air. "In light of this rather abrupt development, I have decided to give you the day off from your classes in order to prepare for the evening." The hall burst into noise even louder than before. James, Athena and Sirius each jumped up and started doing a kind of bizarre square dance in celebration, much to the amusement of their peers.

"So, finish your breakfasts, and proceed to make ready for tonights events at your leisure! Enjoy the holiday everyone, and I will see you all tonight!" Dumbledore concluded with a wink, and sat back down in his chair at the head of the long Professors table.

Sirius Black was in a foul mood. He had to spend the rest of breakfast watching Athena get asked to ball multiple times, and his temper was wearing rather thin. Remus had to physically restrain him from tackling Dirk Cresswell who had the audacity to ask Athena 'If she knew a way around the sliding stairs yet'. Lucky for him, James was asking Daisy McCartney from Ravenclaw to the ball and wasn't around to hear it.

"Sirius! There you are! You look so tense!" Peppa exclaimed, coming up the aisle and sitting next to Sirius, and immediately began playing with his hair. If he was mistaken, Athena mimed vomiting to Lily, who snickered and nodded in agreement.

"Are you excited for this evening? I'm going to wear a red gown, do you have any red dress robes? or a red tie perhaps?" Peppa asked, moving her hands from his hair, to his thigh. He almost flinch away from her _almost._

"Erm- yeah I think I've got a red tie." Sirius mumbled "If I don't, I can just transfigure one.." He trailed off.

"Oh of course! You are _so_ good at transfiguration." Peppa said sweetly, intertwining her fingers with his. It bothered him that she was always touching him, always looking out the corner of her eye at Athena or any other girl who happened to be around, like she was marking her territory.

He heard a loud peal of musical laughter and looked over to see Athena smiling at a first year who had conjured her up a bouquet of roses.

"How lovely!" She said, smelling the flowers. "That was really clever Roger!"

Sirius frowned, this was low. He was jealous of a _first year_.

When Athena wasn't looking, flicked his wand under the able and transfigured the roses to sunflowers, her favorite flower. Much to his annoyance, Remus caught his eye, and gave him a look that could only mean he knew.

After a few moments of desperate panic, he decided he didn't really care. Maybe if he talked it out with somebody sane like Remus, he would realize that he had actually gone mad two years ago, and then everything would go back to normal and Sirius wouldn't have to watch the girl he loved from across the room, although the more he though about it, the more he was convinced that he would feel this way forever.


	15. Sharing a Secret

_A/N: Hey guys! What happens in this chapter might piss some people off, and I understand completely, but please try to keep an open mind. Also, every time I try to break up my paragraphs with symbols, FF always deletes them, so that's what the random 'Z's' in-between chapters are for. Thanks for reading!_

"So what are you guys going to do for the rest of the day?" Athena asked the remaining 6th years, most of the other students had scrambled off to find dates, leaving Sirius, Peter, Remus, James, Lily, Matt, and Marlene sitting at the Gryffindor table alone.

"Get ready of course! I can't believe I'm still down here!" Marlene answered at once, standing up.

"It's only 11 o'clock McKinnon, you don't have to be ready until 7." Athena pointed out, but Marlene looked horrified.

"It's already 11? I thought it was at most 10:30! I've got to go." She said, and practically sprinted out of the great hall, leaving her classmates bewildered.

"What could she possibly be doing that takes eight hours?" Peter asked, scratching his head in confusion.

"As girl, I can honestly say I don't know." Lily said. The boys looked to Athena who shrugged "Don't look at me, The only thing I do that takes a bit of time is wash my hair, and even that only takes a half an hour." Athena's almost waist length blonde hair was her trademark, and it took effort to maintain it, but she felt it was more than worth it.

Something caught Athena's eye, the roses that the first year had gave her had been transfigured into her favorite, sunflowers.

"Oi? Did anybody see who did this?" Athena asked, bemused. Her heart was beating a fraction of a second faster, who ever had done it must have been paying close attention to her, well they must have been paying close attention for a while to know what her favorite sunflowers were.

"No?" James said shrugging and glancing around the hall, it was nearly empty.

"Oh! Maybe you have a secret admirer!" Lily said grinning, and Athena rolled her eyes, but the prospect excited her.

"I doubt it." Athena said shrugging, but she was unable to keep her eyes off of the sunflowers.

"You definitely have a secret admirer." Lily said with a tone of finality "I wonder who it is, maybe they'll reveal themselves at the ball tonight!"

Athena grinned "Yeah maybe.." She trailed off, smiling to herself.

James grimaced, he was always caught slightly off guard when Athena would act all girly, and the prospect of a 'secret admirer' had him irritated, he liked to know who his enemy was. Although, whoever took the time to know what she liked and disliked, and obviously knew how to make her happy.. might not be an enemy at all.

"How about we visit Hagrid?" Remus suddenly interjected, ending the secret admirer conversation. "We haven't seen him in ages."

"No way mate." Athena said, as she tucked a sunflower into her long braid "I bumped into him yesterday and he mentioned something about needed help with the blast ended skrewts."

"Merlin, yeah lets avoid that for a while." Sirius said, making a face of disgust.

"Yeah, McKinnon would have a heart attack if we all showed up to the ball smelling like skrewts." James said grinning.

"We could play Quidditch." Peter offered.

"Yeah! Lets do that!" James said jumping up immediately.

Athena glanced at Lily who looked less than thrilled, but she shrugged as if to say 'I don't have anything better to do'.

ZZZZZZ

"Where do you think you're going?" Athena heard a cold voice from behind her say. The six Gryffindors had all gone upstairs and gotten their brooms (except Lily, who got a book) and were now headed out to the pitch.

"We're going to the Quidditch pitch." James said, acerbically, and Athena realized at once the the original voice was that of Rodolphus Lestrange.

"Slytherin has the pitch booked today." Rodolphus said, sneering.

"What for? Half of your team can't even work out how to fly a broom." Athena said sarcastically, and thought for a split second that Lestrange was going to tackle her. Sirius must have sensed it too, for he moved closer to her, and put his hand on her shoulder protectively.

"We're training our new Seeker if you must know Dumbledore." Rabastan Lestrange said, and Athena raised an eyebrow.

"New Seeker? Who?" James asked, stepping next to Athena and in front of Lily. Any other time Lily would have protested, but the Slytherins still hadn't retaliated from her little stunt with Bellatrix, and she really did not want today to be the day.

"Me." Said a dark haired, dark eyed boy, who stepped out from between the Lestranges. He was stunningly handsome in a way that was similar to Sirius, but more traditional, more 'debonair.'

Athena let the insult she had been about to say die in her throat, because even though the other boys didn't understand it, she tried to never insult Regulus Black.

"Regulus? Regulus is your new Seeker?" Sirius said bewildered, looking at his brother between the two brutes that were the Lestranges.

"Yes. Isn't that a bit obvious Black?" Rodolphus snarled, and Athena frowned. This was bad.

Another reason that Athena never said anything about or to Regulus was because he never gave her a reason to. He was a year younger and generally stayed with his Slytherin classmates, who for the time being were harmless. He was never with the older Slytherins, and the fact that Rabastan and Rodolphus were bringing him into their group spelled trouble. Athena could tell that Sirius sensed this too, as his face held an expression of guarded concern.

"Yes well thats my brother, always showing he's all brawn and no brains. Probably why he ended up in Gryffindor." Regulus said, with a sneer that was so similar to Bella Blacks, that it sent a shiver down Athena's spine.

"Why you feeble little-" Sirius began but Remus quickly grabbed his friend by the shoulder and steered him away from the Slytherins, who were all smiling sinisterly, enjoying every second.

"Well if you're not going to use the pitch then I am." Athena said suddenly and began to march over to the large playing field.

"What are you as daft as Black? I just told you that Slytherin booked the pitch!" Rodolphus called after her, marching his group up to her, and essentially cutting her off from the other Gryffindors. She could see just past a fourth years shoulders to Sirius and James who looked increasingly concerned, and were trying to force their way into the group.

"Yes, I do recall you saying that. But unless _you're_ more daft than you look, a feat I really must commend you on I might add." Athena began, smiling in satisfaction at the flicker of outrage that passed along the Slytherin Quidditch team. "You'll see that even though Slytherin has booked the pitch, Slytherin is standing around, instead of using it!"

Lestrange stared at her blankly for a few seconds before calling out to his team "Alright, that's enough of looking at the freakshow boys. Even though she is a pretty little blood traitor." He said, moving dangerously close. Athena thought that she actually heard a low growl come from Sirius. And with that they were gone, off in the direction of the pitch.

ZZZZZ

After the pitch was taken from them, the group dispersed. Peter went off to find Molly Orange, to make sure that she was still going to the ball with him. Amos came and got Lily, asking if he could talk to her alone. James urged Remus to go find a date before 'all the good ones were gone', and Sirius walked off muttering something about writing a letter to his uncle.

So that left James and Athena sitting under an enormous maple tree that sat by the lake on the Hogwarts grounds. Because of the unseasonably warm weather they had been having, the leaves on the tree were still turning from green to orange and gold, and with every breath of wind hundreds of golden leaves fluttered down toward them.

'It's the kind of earth magic that man could never recreate.' Athena thought smiling, as she took in the scene around her.

"Not that I'm complaining James, but what made you decide to be civil to Lily again?" Athena asked James, who was tearing apart a leaf and winding it into a tight circle.

"I dunno, I guess I just figured that it was all for nothing, and I know the tension it put on you lot." He said shrugging, he picked up her hand and slid the tiny circle onto her ring finger. Athena grinned.

"I'm glad you came around, I know that she feels a lot better now." Athena said truthfully. It was interesting, now that James wasn't hitting on her all the time, Lily could tolerate being in his presence. She wondered if he realized that.

James merely shrugged again, he really didn't want to be talking about this. "Have you decided who you're gonna go to the ball with?" He asked, leaning against the trunk of the tree and stretching out his legs. Athena mimicked his actions.

"Nah I dunno, I wouldn't mind going alone honestly. But maybe if Moony doesn't find somebody that he wants to go with, I'll go with him." James smiled softly at her, he knew that she had turned down all the other invitations because the person that she really wanted to go with, she couldn't, and she would obviously much rather go with a friend.

"I think that would be a good plan, Remus never has a good time at these things."

Athena frowned, it was true. Remus was always so concerned about his condition that he never allowed himself to really relax around a girl that wasn't Athena or Lily. It infuriated Remus because he deserved to be happy, but he refused to see it that way.

ZZZZZZ

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Sirius looked up from where he was sitting on the bed, his head in his hands.

"About what?" He asked, shrugging. Remus gave him a look and sat down on the opposite bed.

"You're really not a good liar when it comes to lying to us."

"Alright, alright. I don't know what to do anymore. I'd been hoping that the way I felt about her would just.. go away." Sirius said, running his hands through his hair anxiously. He couldn't believe that he was actually telling somebody about this.

"Why would you want them to go away?" Remus asked, confused. Sirius sighed.

"Don't play dumb Moony. You hear James all the time joking about how horrible I would be for her. Well, actually how horrible I am as a boyfriend in general."

Remus frowned, it was true.

"James would never let me date her. I brought it up, in fifth year and he lost it. I had to tell him I was joking because he was ready to pummel me."

"James Potter does not control Athena." A female voice said from the doorway, and Sirius felt his heart drop.

"Evans." Sirius said, ready to throw up. Now _two_ people were in on his humiliating secret.

Lily moved into the room and sat next to Remus. "Eavesdropping Evans?" Sirius said, trying to be intimidating, but the truth was he was just too tired.

"I came up to ask if any of you checked the newest Transfiguration periodical out of the library." Lily said with a huff, disgusted at the insinuation.

Sirius gestured to James' bedside table, where the papers were laying. Lily made a face.

"Look, This is an extreme secret Evans. Nobody else knows about how I feel." Sirius said uncomfortably.

"Why not though? Why not just tell her? James isn't her father or her brother or even her cousin. You don't need _his _permission to date her. It's not like Gideon Prewett asked for his permission. Contrary to popular belief, James Potter does _not_ rule the world!" Lily said, standing up and pacing.

"That's where you're wrong. Prewett actually _did_ ask James before he asked her to be his girlfriend. He controls her more than you think, and not in a bad way necessarily, its just, you know how she is about it. They have a special bond, that I think goes beyond that of a father or brother or cousin. There's something there that affects her in a way that, even if she would never admit it, James' opinion of her and the people she dates is extremely important."

Lily made a face again. "I think you're giving him too much credit." She said, looking to Remus for back-up but he simply shrugged.

"James' influence on her is rather strong." He began "But, I think Lily is right. In this situation I think Athena should be the one to make her own choices. I've seen the way she looks at you, the way she acts around you. She feels the same Padfoot I could guarantee it."

Sirius looked up in shock. Both of his classmates were looking down at him, nodding and smiling.

"You're joking? You must be joking." He breathed out, his mind running through every encounter they had that year. Every conversation, every time they touched and Sirius felt as though his insides had turned to lava, did she feel the same?

"And even though Potter has a semi-good reason for not wanting you with Athena-" Lily began but a look from Sirius cut her off "I'm sorry but you are a complete womanizer."

Sirius made a noise a protest. "Padfoot, it's true and you know it." Remus said jumping up and joined Lily in pacing, it was clear that he had just gotten an idea.

"But! I think it's got to do with Athena that you are that way in the first place." Remus said, and Lily smiled and nodded at him, clearly thinking on the same track.

"What are you two on abou-"

"Remember Zoe Moore, great girl, you guys dated about six weeks?" Sirius nodded, unsure what this had to do with anything.

"And then she told you that she hated flying so you broke up with her?" Remus said, pacing faster.

"Oi, we broke up because.. it wasn't working out." Sirius defended feebly. Lily rolled her eyes.

"Anna Gold, you broke up with her because she said pranking was immature. Smart girl." Lily said.

"And how do you know that?" Sirius asked, unsettled. Lily shrugged as if to say 'word travels fast'.

"Cynitha Smith." Remus said, "Too stupid."

"Margret Jones." Lily said, "Too short."

"Lara Taylor." Remus said, "Too tall."

"Kaitlin Brown." Lily said, "Too shy."

"Coraline Williams." Remus said, "Too obnoxious."

"Saydee Wilson." Lily said, "Too tom-boy."

"Marlene McKinnon." Remus said, "Too girly."

"Abeline Johnson." Lily said, "Hair was too short."

"Antonia Davis." Remus said, "Was rubbish at spell casting."

"Ruby Robinson." Lily said, "Wore glasses."

"Alice Thompson." Remus said, "Was too uncomfortable around us."

"Kelly Wright." Lily said, "Was a bit _too_ comfortable around them.."

"Casey Jones." Remus said, "Brown eyes."

"Maura Green." Lily said, "Too pale."

"Alright, ALRIGHT!" Sirius said, wide-eyed and bewildered.

"And, remember crazy Peppa Parker? The one who tore apart our dorm? The one whom you were suddenly interested in again this year?" Remus asked, Sirius nodded.

"Yeah, interested in again, after she died her hair, _blonde._" Lily said, crossing her arms.

Sirius' jaw dropped.

"I can't believe this.. this whole time, this whole entire time. I've been trying to find a girl like Athena and I didn't even know it."

Lily and Remus looked satisfied. "Which is absurd, because, _Athena is right in front of you!_" Lily said.

"But all of that only solidifies my feelings for her. It doesn't make James okay with it, and it certainly won't make her want me." Sirius said, jumping up and pacing now while the other two sat on Remus' bed.

"What are you not understanding? She already wants you!" Remus said, exasperated already. If somebody told him that the girl he had been wanting from a distance had actually wanted him back, he'd be out the door in a second to tell her how he felt.

"How can you tell? You can't exactly go through her dating history and see who she picked out thats like me. The only guy she's ever even kissed is Gideon Prewett."

Lily made a sound of disagreement, but pretended she didn't, when the two boys looked at her.

"Gideon Prewett is actually as close of a double for you as she would get." Lily said, quickly.

"Gideon is incredibly handsome, an excellent wizard, great at Quidditch, really funny and heaps of fun to be around. He's just like you, only more mature." Lily said.

"Well if he's so great than why are you here telling me what to do. You should be telling him what to do." Sirius said, childishly.

"Don't be an idiot Black. If I thought that Gideon was the guy she really wanted, I would be writing him everyday telling him to find a way to work out a long distance relationship with her. But he's not the guy she really wants. You are. She just.. doesn't know it yet."

Sirius sighed and flopped down on the bed again.

"You need to tell her how you feel. It's the only way you'll ever have her." Remus said, with a tone of finality.

"What am I supposed to do? Just waltz up to her and say hey by the way, I've fancied you for six years and I didn't even know it for half of it?"

"You could probably word it a bit differently, but yeah I suppose thats alright." Lily said grinning.

"You've got to tell her. Whatever it is you think you stand to loose, think about all you'd gain." Remus said.

Sirius' head suddenly filled with images of him and Athena walking around Hogwarts hand in hand, falling asleep together in the common room, spending Hogsmeade trips together, laying in the grass out by the lake, and then the most important image of all, the image that changed his mind completely..being able to finally kiss her.

"You're right." Sirius said suddenly, jumping up. "You're right!" He shouted, running for the door.

"Sirius! Wait!" Lily shouted, and pulled out her wand, slamming the door out of Sirius' hand, and locking it.

"What the bloody hell was that for? I'm going to tell her! I'm going to tell her right now!" Sirius exclaimed, trying to force the door open.

"You've got to wait Padfoot, tell her tonight. We'll work out a plan and it will be perfect."

Sirius' hand dropped from the door, considering Remus' actions. "Alright, that sounds like a good plan. Let's get started."

ZZZZZZ

"What do you think about Regulus being the new Seeker?" Athena asked, smiling when James made a face.

"I think it spells trouble. No good can from that situation, I only wonder what Rodolphus is playing at, I mean what could he possibly want with a fifth year?"

Athena bit her lip "It's obvious isn't it? You and I both know that one of Sirius' worst nightmares is that Regulus would become a Death Eater. There's no doubt in my mind that Rodolphus is taking instruction from his sadistic girlfriend." She said in a hushed tone, lest somebody be eavesdropping.

James' frown intensified, "That certainly makes sense. Merlin, why is she such a bitch? He's different whatever so what? Just leave him the bloody hell alone."

"Because that goes against everything they've been taught. They've been raised to believe that purity of blood is of the utmost importance, so if one of their own breaks away from the family, it muddies them all up."

Athena and James stayed out by the lake for hours talking, they hadn't done that since the very beginning of school, and it reminded Athena of why James was her best friend in the first place.

"Ah Merlin it's already four-thirty." Athena said, the sun had begun to go down and the sky was a brilliant gold and pink color, which only enhanced the gold of the leaves that were still tumbling down around them. It was absolutely breathtaking, and James and Athena could have stayed in the moment forever.

"Do you think-" Athena began but was suddenly cut off when James gently grabbed her and pressed his lips to hers. And to her own surprise, she found herself kissing him back.

ZZZZZZ

"I kissed Athena." James suddenly said, the sixth year boys were all moving hastily around the dormitory getting ready for the ball, laughing and joking.

The room fell still and silent. "What did you just say?" Sirius asked, hands shaking he accidentally ripped a button off of his dress shirt.

"I kissed her." James said, falling back onto his bed, brows knit in confusion.

"Why.. why would you do that?" Sirius asked, his voice trembling, this was the last thing he had ever expected, although now that he thought on it, he was a fool for not seeing it.

"I don't know!" James shouted, "You would have too if you were there! The sky was gold and the leaves were gold and her skin was glowing and she had flowers in her hair and it was beautiful! She was beautiful!"

"So what did she do? When you kissed her I mean." Remus asked, his eyes flitting back and forth between James and Sirius.

"She kissed me back."

Sirius let out a sort of half growl, half snarl and stormed into the bathroom, where he was heard banging into various objects and swearing.

"What's his problem?" James asked, closing his eyes. The last thing he was expecting was a fight with _Sirius_ about it. He had figured that they would all be shocked, but not angry.

"He's probably just worried that this will mess up the group.." Remus lied, unconvincingly, but James accepted it.

"So what are you going to do now?" Remus asked, sitting down on his bed next to Peter who seemed to be in silent shock.

"I don't know, We probably won't get a chance to talk much tonight because of the damn ball." James muttered, roughly putting his shoes on.

"Why not? Aren't you going together?" Peter asked, always a step behind.

"No. She convinced me to ask Daisy McCartney remember?" James explained, glancing at himself in the mirror and smoothing his hair down.

"Does this mean you fancy her?" Matt asked, combing his hair into a neat part. James shrugged.

"No..Well, no. I don't know. Merlin I don't know. I mean I suppose I've always felt something for her, but it was always more 'friendly' than 'girl-friendly' but today I just couldn't contain myself, it was like it exploded out of me."

"Maybe that means you're meant to be together." Peter offered, glancing at the bathroom door where Sirius was heard swearing extra loud.

"..What about Evans?" Matt asked, asking the question that was on everybody's minds.

"I don't know. What about her? She's got nothing to do with this." James said, looking perplexed.

"Well, I just mean you've always been very clear about the fact that you fancy her is all." Matt explained, picking up his wand and placing it in his jacket pocket.

"I did, But she's got a boyfriend now, I'm not just gonna sit around for her to realize that Amos Diggory is a bumbling idiot, If she doesn't want me thats fine, There are plenty of people who do."

"Like Athena?" Peter asked, giving voice to the obvious.

"I dunno. I suppose so." James said with a slight grin. A shattering sound was heard from the bathroom.

"Deal with him will you? I've got to go fetch Daisy. Tell him it's not gonna affect the group, I swear." James said, smoothing his hair one more time and leaving the other four boys behind to think about what had just occurred.


	16. Halloween Ball

_A/N: Thanks for the reviews guys! Sorry for the wait but this chapter was really difficult for me to write for some reason. I really had to think about it before I was able to get it out of my head and into the computer. Anyway, thanks to those who took the time out to review! You guys definitely motivate me to keep the chapters coming. I'm really enjoying writing this story so far!_

Athena slipped into her dress in a daze, she had never been more confused. What the bloody hell was going on in her life?

"Do you want me to curl your hair?" Lily asked as she pulled her own dress over her head. Athena nodded silently.

"Alright come sit on my bed then."

Athena obeyed, and sat at the foot of Lily's bed while she cast various beautifying charms on her long hair.

"Why are you being so quiet? It's very un-Athena-like, aren't you excited for tonight?" Lily questioned, as she curled a particularly stubborn piece of hair.

"James kissed me." Athena blurted out, watching Lily's face in the mirror for her reaction.

Lily's eyes widened in shock "What? Potter kissed you? What did you do? Kick him off?"

Athena chuckled "No. I.. I kissed him back." Lily looked even more surprised than before.

"And did you..I don't know..did you like it?" Lily asked, obviously searching for the right thing to say.

Athena sighed "I don't know. It's all very confusing. One minute were talking about Quidditch and the next minute we're kissing. I mean, I guess I kind of liked it. I mean it was nice. The whole scene was really nice."

Lily raised an eyebrow and went back to curling Athena's hair, wondering why she was so surprised.

When she was finished, Athena put on a bit of makeup and glanced at herself in the mirror, she had chosen to wear white because everybody else in Hogwarts would most likely be dressed in deep colors, and she knew that white was guaranteed to make a statement.

"You look really incredible 'Thene, I can't believe you still have a tan." Lily commented grinning. Athena shrugged, smiling.

"Yeah I guess. You're the incredible one, the green dress seriously brings out your eyes." Lily hugged her.

"Amos is really lucky." Athena said winking suggestively, and Lily pushed her playfully.

"That reminds me, did you ever decide on a date?"

Athena shrugged "Nope, I'm going stag. Perhaps I shouldn't have made James ask Daisy.."

"Look I know you're confused right now, but I promised Amos I'd meet him in front of the Fat Lady at this time.." Lily trailed off looking torn between her plans with her boyfriend, and talking to her friend.

"Go!" Athena said pushing Lily out the door "I'm fine. We'll have time to talk later."

Lily looked at her appreciatively and rushed out the door to meet Amos.

ZZZZZZ

Sirius was miserable. He had waited for everybody to leave the dormitory before coming out of the bathroom, and he had seriously considered not leaving at all.

But he knew that Peppa would go absolutely mental if he just didn't show up, so he reluctantly pulled himself together and made his way down to the Great Hall where he met Peppa outside the doors. Most of the students were milling about, chatting, checking out peoples dates and outfits.

He immediately noticed James and Daisy standing by the foot of the stairs, and James waved to him enthusiastically. Sirius gave him a half-hearted wave back, but James seemed satisfied.

Remus had walked up with his date, Alicia Morrison, and he was about to say hello when there were audible gasps heard through the crowd.

Sirius looked around in alarm and followed Remus' eyes to the stairs, where the sight before him made his mouth go dry.

Athena was descending, looking completely oblivious to the fact that practically the entire school was staring at her, her white dress flowed around her, and her hair was done in loose waves, she looked much like the goddess she was named after.

"Merlin." Sirius heard James whisper, and he shared the sentiment.

Sirius watched as Athena's eyes scanned through the crowd, she lit up and smiled when she saw him, making her way through the hoards of students to where he and Remus were standing with their dates.

"Hiya guys." Athena said. Remus bowed comically, and Athena nearly fell over as she curtsied exaggeratedly.

"You look..great." Sirius said, his palms sweating as she pulled him in for a 'thank-you' hug.

"You girls look lovely." Athena said to the boys dates, smiling politely. Alicia smiled kindly and returned the compliment, Peppa sneered.

"Can we _please_ go inside now?" Peppa whined, clinging to Sirius' arm like a child. He grunted in response, and Peppa dragged him inside the Great Hall.

"She's a real piece of work, that one." Peter said, approaching the group. Athena beamed at him, he looked so cute in his dress robes, he kept looking anxiously at Molly who looked quite happy to be on his arm.

"Molly! I absolutely love your dress!" Athena said truthfully, the rich plum colors did wonders for her complexion. Molly looked pleased with the compliment.

"Thank you! I must say, white was very unpredictable, although clearly a good choice for you." Peter looked on, smiling, quite glad to see Athena and Molly getting on so well.

"Shall we go inside Peter?" Molly asked, as a group of Hufflepuffs moved passed them and into the Great Hall. Her friends, no doubt.

"Sure Mol, come on." Peter said, and slightly blushed as she grabbed his hand and walked confidently through the doors.

"They are so incredibly sweet together. I rather like her." Athena commented. Remus nodded in eager agreement, he too was pleased to see Peter looking so happy. And Molly was a really great girl, perfect for him.

"Ah, I see Lily waving me over, I'll catch up with you lot inside yeah?" Athena said, waving to Remus and his date, as she made her way inside to where Lily and Amos were sitting.

Instead of the usual long house tables, there were round tables set up to seat about 14 students. Sitting next to Lily and Amos was Sirius and Peppa, and the rest would fill as it got later.

After chatting a bit with Lily and Amos, a slightly uncomfortable silence settled over the table. Just as Athena was about to get up and find somebody else to talk to, Peppa began to speak.

"So, Dumbledore? Your date still isn't here?" She asked, although not unkindly, she did seem bored with the fact that she had to entertain a conversation with the Gryffindor.

"I came alone." Athena said shrugging. Peppa looked at her in horror, across the table Lily rolled her eyes dramatically and Athena had to bite her lip to keep from laughing.

"_Alone?_ All _alone?_ Why?"

"Erm- cause there wasn't anybody that I particularly wanted to go with." Athena said, with a tone of finality, and Peppa didn't question her further.

Athena noticed with a slight jolt, as dinner was served, that James and Daisy had taken seats at a Ravenclaw table. Her stomach plummeted to the floor, and she was decidedly _not _hungry anymore.

Lily caught the change in her demeanor and glanced over to the small table of Ravenclaws, plus James and made a face of utter disgust. Athena tried not to notice when Lily kicked Remus under the table, to draw his attention to the humiliating fact that after he kissed Athena, he realized it was a mistake.

Remus' eyebrows went up in shock, but Athena could tell from out of the corner of her eye that he was trying to formulate a logical response. Sirius and the rest of the table, seemed completely oblivious.

After an hour or so of disinterestedly pushing her food around on her plate, her uncle stood from his seat at the high table, which had remained that same as it always was, although the teachers were all in their version of 'dressed up'. Athena thought Hagrid looked particularly smashing in his suit, that looked as though it might have been made of some type of brown fur.

"Now that we are all sufficiently full of our wonderful feast, let the ball commence! If you could all rise from your tables." Professor Dumbledore said, and the students followed his command, moving away from the round tables that disintegrated into thin air as though they had been made of steam.

"Y'know, I'll never get used to things like that." Lily whispered to Athena, and she grinned. She believed that muggle-borns had a much higher appreciation for magic than any pure-blood she'd ever come across.

As the tables disappeared, a large bandstand appeared at the opposite end of the room, and music began to play. Athena noticed that a few smaller tables and benches were spread around the perimeter of the room, for when the students wanted a break from dancing. She also saw the doors to the outdoor garden, that had been lit with various floating candles and lit jack-o-latern's, had opened, giving students the option to get some air outside.

"I'm gonna go say hello to my uncle, I'll see you later." Athena mumbled to Lily, and stalked off away from the group. Inwardly groaning when she heard Amos ask 'What's her problem tonight?'

ZZZZZZ

Athena bypassed going to see her uncle and made her way straight outside, the warm front that they had been enjoying was clearly at its end, and she got goose-flesh the second she sat down on one of the short stone pillars.

The band inside switched to a more well known tune, and Athena smiled slightly at the hoots and hollers they got when the crowd recognized it. She hummed along quietly with the familiar song.

She wasn't nervous about going back inside, in fact she was hardly embarrassed. James was her best friend, he had been since they were eleven, and he would be her best friend as long as she had some say in the matter, which she knew she did.

But she needed time alone to collect her thoughts, and this was the perfect place for it. It was beautiful out here, but the wind was fairly chilly, Athena shivered every time a breeze floated by, her arms bare and unprotected from the elements. Nobody else had ventured out here so far, save a stray couple once in a while to snog.

She tried to understand what may have compelled him to kiss her, and what force drove her to kiss him back. Most importantly of all, she need to figure out what these new feelings meant, and where she was going to go from here.

Although judging from James' behavior this evening, she was quite sure that he felt that he had made a mistake, and that was fine. She would be damned if she let some accidental kiss by the lake ruin her friendship.

"I must admit my dear child, this is the last place I imagined I'd find you." Athena heard the gravelly, but warm voice from beside her.

"Hiya Uncle Al." Athena replied, looking away as her uncle took a seat next to her.

"What's troubling you?" He asked, and he handed her a large mug of some warm liquid. Athena took a sip and smiled as the drink warmed her to the core, Hot Cocoa, always her favorite.

"Nothing, I just thought I'd catch up on some thinking is all."

Albus looked skeptical, but didn't press her, and conjured up his own mug.

"You of course, know that I am here if you should decide to share some of the thinking you find yourself catching up on, correct?"

Athena nodded. "Of course."

ZZZZZ

Lily had just finished dancing with Amos, and had broken away from him in search of some pumpkin juice, all that dancing had made her thirsty!

She had finally located a goblet and was taking a deep drink from it when somebody grabbed her arm roughly. She looked up, scowling, at Sirius.

"What do you think your-" She began but Sirius cut her off, and dragged her outside the Great Hall and into a side corridor.

"What are you playing at Padfoot?" Lily heard Remus' voice in the darkness.

_'Lumos_' She muttered, lighting her wand. Sirius was glaring at the two of them viciously.

"Just thought you should know about James and Athena, Evans. Seeing as only a few hours ago you two were convincing me to tell her that I fancy her! Well heres news for you both, I _DON'T_. I do not, and I have not ever fancied Athena Dumbledore. I never will. I was only joking, and I can't believe you two were so stupid as to believe me. HAH! I hope you like being pranked because I just got you two so good!" Sirius ranted and raved, Lily stepped back in fright a bit, he was acting like a maniac.

"Alright, Padfoot." Remus said in a calm voice, he obviously picked up on Lily's fear. "You got us good, we never even saw it coming."

Sirius stopped ranting and stared at the two of them, wide-eyed in a kind of frenzied panic. It dawned on Lily that he must really be hurt about what happened between Athena and Potter, she had never seen him act this way in her life.

"Look just relax Padfoot, we get it, you were joking." Remus placated him, and Sirius visibly relaxed.

"Lets go back, Peppa and Alicia will be looking for you, and Amos will probably be looking for me." Lily said, grabbing Sirius and Remus' arms, and walked back to the Great Hall with them. Casting worried glances to Remus the whole way.

They had almost returned Sirius safely to Peppa, when James intercepted them.

Lily was about to tear him in half, when she saw how anxious he looked. He was looking around the Great Hall frantically, Lily realized he was looking for Athena.

"What do you want Potter?" Lily asked, she felt Sirius' arm muscles contract bizarrely, and he had a grotesque forced smile on his face. Luckily James was so preoccupied with his own anxiety that he didn't even realize.

"Have you seen Athena?" James asked, running his hands through his hair anxiously, making it stand straight up on end.

"Um, last I saw she was dancing with Dirk Cresswell.." Lily trailed off.

"Dirk Cresswell?" James repeated, his face flushing a bright red. Lily almost laughed.

"He asked her about forty-five times after she came in from talking with Professor Dumbledore. She said yes to shut him up." James visibly relaxed, also the fact that Cresswell walked past them probably helped out.

"I see her dancing with Frank Longbottom." Remus offered, looking through a gap in the crowd.

ZZZZZ

"Thanks for the dance Dumbledore." Frank said, bowing exaggeratedly. Athena grinned.

"You're quite welcome." She said, bowing in return.

"Erm- Um, Athena?"

Athena turned around, her stomach tightening when she saw James, holding a hand out to her. Athena glanced at Frank who had his eyebrows raised, but nodded and went back to his girlfriend, Alice.

"Hey James." Athena said softly, as James pulled her close to him, they swayed in time with the music.

"Hi." He whispered, his voice sounded sticky.

"I told Moony, Wormtail, and Padfoot about what happened between us." He blurted out, looking worried at her reaction. She laughed quietly.

"I expected you would. I told Lily."

James nodded, looking relieved. "What did they say?" Athena asked, leaning her head on James' shoulder. Smiling when she heard him intake his breath sharply.

"They were surprised of course, Padfoot was angry."

Athena picked up her head, "Angry? Why?" She asked, perplexed. She glanced over to where Sirius was dancing with Peppa.

"I dunno, Remus reckons he was afraid that we would end up hating each other and tearing the group apart." James said, looking at her nervously, questioningly. Athena picked up on the unasked question the hung in the air.

"That would never happen James. You should know that, nothing could ever tear the group apart. Especially not something as stupid as you regretting-"

"I don't regret it." James cut her off, looking serious. Athena raised an eyebrow.

"You don't? Then why have you been avoiding me?"

"I dunno.." He trailed off honestly "I guess I was just nervous that you'd be angry with me. Plus, I could tell Padfoot needed some more time to cool off, and most importantly I knew I would probably say something idiotic to mess everything up if I saw you too soon."

Athena grinned, "I see." She said, and returned her head to his shoulder.


	17. Exploding Snap

_A/N: __Hey guys! Sorry this one took a while, this is my first semester of med school, so I'm a bit swamped with papers and mid-terms. After I publish this chapter, I'm going to start straight away on the next chapter. I have a few ideas for that one, so that should be published fairly soon as well. Anyways, here it is, thanks for being patient, and as always thanks for the reviews!_

Athena tugged on her tie to loosen it as she trudged along the path from the Quidditch Pitch to Hagrids. James and Sirius were currently in Quidditch practice, usually Athena would watch with Remus and Peter, but she wasn't in the mood for it today.

The thick wooden door to Hagrids hut had been worn smooth from years of weathering storms, and Athena only had to knock once before Fang started barking and scratching at the door in excitement.

"Get back would ya!" Athena heard Hagrids gruff voice call out, before the door opened and Fang leaped out, licking her face, tail wagging in excitement.

"Athena! It's you, been a while hasn't it!" Hagrid boomed, attempting to wrangle Fang back inside.

"Hiya Fang." Athena said grinning, as she skillfully guided the enormous dog back into the hut. "Hiya Hagrid!"

"Tell me, are yeh enjoying yer sixth year?" Hagrid asked, after Athena had settled into a huge arm chair, and was given tea and rock cakes that she pocketed when Hagrid wasn't looking.

"I am, it's no different from last year really, although everyone seems to be getting along much better, in Gryffindor anyways. Lily and James have held a few polite conversations, it's great!"

Hagrid smiled at her enthusiasm, she had come to him a few times after James and Lily would have particularly angry fights with each other.

"I'm glad ter hear it."

Athena glanced over at the table, frowning when she saw the headline on todays Daily Prophet.

"Another town was taken?" Athena asked, feeling sick.

"I afraid so, there was a battle in Mould-on-the-Would las' nigh'." Hagrid said sighing, he pushed his wild mane of hair out of his eyes so he could see Athena's reaction. Her family had lived there, before..

"That's horrible, were there any casualties?" She asked, trembling a bit. She knew if she was ever going to join the Order that she would have to get over things like this, but hearing about the towns and the innocent people who lost their lives, always shook her to her core. She had never actually seen Mould-on-the-Would, but that was where her Great Grandparents had lived before her Great Grandfather had been sent to Azkaban.

"Too many ta name." Hagrid said sadly.

Athena got up and grabbed the Daily Prophet, her heart sinking when she read that an entire family, two parents and their four children had been murdered all because their Grandfather had been Muggle-Born.

"Yeh know, I've got two new Unicorn foals in the back if your int'rested." Hagrid offered, an attempt to cheer her up.

She smiled enthusiastically "Sure!" And allowed Hagrid to lead her out of the hut, with Fang walking protectively next to her, out past his back garden.

"Beau'iful aren' they?" He said, enticing the smaller of the two over to them with a piece of raw steak.

"Gorgeous. Really." Athena agreed, petting the unicorns silky mane. A few loose silvery strands fell out into her palm.

"I've been waitin' fer her to start shedding." Hagrid took the hair from Athena and braided it into a circle and handed it back to her. Athena grinned and slipped it onto her wrist.

"Thanks Hagrid." Athena said smiling, looking down at the almost iridescent bracelet, it meant a lot to her.

"Yer welcome. Although yeh should thank Bardolf here, he's the one who gave it ter yeh." Hagrid said with a smile, glad he was able to cheer her up. He had known Athena since she was a baby, and he felt a great deal of love and respect for her.

"Thanks Bardolf." Athena laughed, as the small unicorn nuzzled against her.

"Oi! Teensie!"

"Tha'll be James." Hagrid boomed, laughing. He really enjoyed talking with Athena's friends as well, students had never tried to befriend him before Athena came along, but she brought along the boys and Lily when she would visit him, and soon they were visiting him on their own.

James waved to Hagrid in greeting.

"How come you weren't watching Teensie?" James whined as he approached, with the rest of the boys in tow. "I did some new moves and you missed them."

"The Woollongong Shimmy, and the Sloth Grip Roll you mean?" Athena said, grinning.

"Wha-? How did you know that?" Sirius asked, scratching his head.

"Hagrid does have windows you know."

ZZZZZ

"You've still never told me what happened with you and Potter and it's almost been a week." Lily said to Athena as they got ready for bed. Marlene was somewhere with Matt, and Athena had no idea where Brigantia was.

"Nothing." Athena replied, shrugging, as she put her toothbrush back in its holder. "We decided to just stay as we were, the kiss was just a one off thing."

Lily seemed to consider this for a moment, before nodding in agreement. "Probably for the best.." She trailed off, wondering if Sirius knew this information.

"How are things with Amos?" Athena asked, breaking Lily out of her reverie.

"Oh, fine." Lily answered simply, as she finished brushing out her hair. She left Athena in the bathroom and climbed into bed.

"That well, huh?" She said, as always, zeroing in on exactly what was wrong.

"It's not bad..necessarily." Lily defended, wishing that she could lie to Athena, but she had never been successful in that before. She always knew when she was lying. "It's just getting a bit boring."

"Ah, well that's what I'd expect."

Lily gave her a sharp look.

"I'm just saying, Amos is kind of boring. Not that he's not really kind or anything like that, I just can't imagine spending a length of time with him." Athena said shrugging.

Lily sighed, she knew Athena didn't mean to be mean, she just said things as she saw them. She just didn't realize that she could be hurtful at times.

"He's fine." Lily said, pulling her bed covers up over herself, and turning away from Athena. "I don't really want to talk about it anymore, I'm tired."

Athena picked up what was going on.

"Right, yeah, me too. Knackered." She said, and crawled into bed, pulled the covers up around her, and watched the fireplace as she slowly fell asleep.

ZZZZZ

"Is it erm- aguamenti?" Peter asked, unsure of himself. He, Athena, Sirius, Remus, and Lily were all hanging out in the common room, doing various homework, and Athena was attempting to tutor Peter.

"No Pete."

"This is- _aquamenti!"_ Athena said, causing a fountain of water to erupt from her wand and onto Sirius' head, much to everyone in the common rooms delight.

"_Finite_" She muttered, before he could get too angry.

"Couldn't you test your spells out on someone else?" Sirius asked, glaring through his curtain of wet hair.

"Sorry Siri." Athena said chucking, before waving her wand over him with a drying spell.

"I can't believe you've mastered that already!" Lily shrieked from across the room. Athena raised an eyebrow.

"Nobody else has mastered that. Professor Flitwick even hinted that it was going to be on the final exam." Lily said, looking exasperated. Athena shrugged.

"Anyway, Pete, the spell you were looking for was _aparecium_."

"You're teaching him a spell for invisible ink?" Remus asked, from the floor, where he had laid out and was currently writing a transfiguration paper.

"Yeah, I figured it could come in handy." Athena said winking. Remus rolled his eyes.

"Sirius have you finished with my charms book?" Lily asked, eyes flitting between the book, and Athena. She wished that she could be like Athena, who heard things once and understood them completely, and could execute them perfectly without any effort at all. Whereas she had to study for hours, and practice over and over in order to get everything right.

"Yeah sure, Evans." Sirius handed her the thick copy of Quintessence: A Quest. Looking quite taken aback when Lily snatched it from him and began maniacally flipping through the pages.

"This is so bloody boring." Sirius whined in frustration, pushing his books out of the way. Honestly Athena was surprised he lasted as long as he did.

"D'you wanna sneak down to the kitchens? Maybe get a bite?" Peter asked, rubbing his growling tummy. Athena grinned.

"Yeah sure, I'm in." She said jumping up. Just then the clock chimed, signaling that it was 9:30.

"Ah bugger is that the time? I gotta go." Athena glanced at herself in the mirror, before standing and heading for the portrait hole. "See you lot later." She said with a wave.

"Wait! Where are you going?" Lily asked, she had never been with the boys without Athena around.

"Just to go see my uncle." And with that, she was gone. Lily sighed and sunk down into her chair, studying her charms book even harder.

ZZZZ

Sirius walked back alone from his last class, Muggle Studies. He was really only taking it to piss off his parents, and it was an easy A. Athena had taken it with him last year, he suspected just to be nice, since she already knows a lot about Muggles. But this year she really wanted to take an extra Defense class, so he was taking Muggle Studies alone. And to add insult to injury, the rest of them didn't have to even be in class at that time, so while he was learning all about felly-tones and hairplanes, they were all hanging out and doing nothing.

When Sirius got into the Gryffindor common room, he saw that Athena was stretched out on the couch, fast asleep.

"She's been like that since her last class of the day." A fourth year girl, whom he was certain neither he, nor Athena had ever spoken to, came up and told him.

Sirius smiled softly "You see, she gets these sinus infections. Ever since she was a kid, and she can't breathe so she can't sleep at night." He explained. The girl frowned. Sirius heard a few snickers from the corner, where her friends were probably hiding. He would wager that the last thing this girl intended to speak to him about was Athena.

She must have gotten it into her head that Sirius liked sassy women. "Fascinating, yeah well..when you have something to talk about other than _her,_ then you can come talk to me."

Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Nah, I don't think I will." He said simply, and walked over to the couch where Athena was. He inwardly smirked when he heard her friends laughing.

"I don't know why they think being nasty to you is charming. It honestly has quite the opposite effect." Sirius muttered quietly to his sleeping friend.

He took a deep breath as he looked at her, her dark eyelashes were resting on her cheeks, her rose colored lips were slightly parted, and her golden hair had drifted into her face. He fought the almost insurmountable urge to move the hair out of her face.

"Would you just snog her already and get it over with? So that every girl in the place will stop trying so hard?" Sirius heard from next to him, and practically jumped out of his skin. Frank Longbottom grinned at him from the chair in front of the fire.

"What are you talking about?" Sirius hissed, glancing at Athena, making sure she was still asleep.

"Hey, you don't have to lie to me Black. I don't know if I'm incredibly clever, or if everyone else around here is just incredibly daft, but I seem to be one of the few who has figured it out."

Sirius looked dumbfounded.

"I have a girlfriend you know." Sirius snapped.

"Yeah, yeah I know. Putrid Parker." Frank said grinning, Sirius knew he was remembering the time she trashed the dorms.

"Look, you're wrong, I feel nothing but friendly affection for Athena."

"Yeah. That's why you're gasping for air just from watching her sleep, right?"

Sirius glared murderously.

"Your secrets safe with me Black. Although I'm sure you know that Lupin and Evans have figured it out as well, yeah?"

Sirius nodded, Frank looked triumphant. "I knew I was right." Sirius glared even harder.

"All I'm saying is stop being such a chicken."

"Fuck off, Frank." Sirius said, louder than he intended, and he cringed when Athena stirred on the couch. Frank sprinted out of there like a bat out of hell, if Sirius hadn't known it was impossible, he would've though that he had apparated away,

"What'd Frank do now?" Athena asked, her voice thick with sleep. It was terribly endearing. "Talking about the Cannons again?"

Sirius chuckled, and sat on the edge of the couch. Smiling to himself as she rubbed her eyes and yawned. "Yep, honestly. The bloke has horrible taste."

"In everything but women!" Frank called out, as he left the common room with Alice. Athena and Sirius laughed quite hysterically.

"Have another infection last night?" Sirius asked, turning back to Athena. She nodded, and sat up on the couch. Curling under a blanket that she had conjured up.

"I don't understand why you don't just go to Madame Pomfrey." Sirius admonished, and he slid into the spot next to her. His heart began to race when she rested her head on his shoulder.

"Because she still hates me for blasting her Hospital Wing in half." Athena said curtly, and Sirius laughed.

"I went to my Uncle Al though, he gave me some horrid tasting potion, and before I knew it I was passed out on the common room couch." She shrugged "I feel a lot better though so I guess it worked."

"I'm glad to hear it." Sirius said honestly, her infections were awful. He remembered her crying once because the pressure in her head was so unbearable.

She didn't answer, and Sirius suspected that she was drifting back to sleep on his shoulder. He tried to keep his breathing even as her body slid even closer to him, filling him with an incredible warmth.

"So, erm- where is everyone else?" Sirius stammered, trying to regain control of his body and mind.

"Peter is with Molly, Remus and Lily are doing some Prefect thing, and I have no idea what James is up to. Detention maybe?" Athena answered, snapping awake and picking up her head from Sirius' shoulder.

Sirius lamented the loss of her warmth, but knew it made it much easier to talk to her without constantly berating himself for wanting to kiss her.

"Fancy a game of exploding snap?" Athena asked as she reached under the cushions of the couch a pulled out the deck of cards that they kept there.

"Sure."

By the time Lily and Remus had returned from their Prefect meeting, Athena and Sirius had been playing a nearly two hour long, very violent and very loud game of snap.

"HAH!" Athena called out victoriously after a rather loud explosion of cards. "I win!"

Sirius grumbled.

"What in the world happened to you two?" Lily asked as she and Remus came and sat with them. Sirius had one eyebrow, soot on his face, and rather sizable hole in his shirt. Athena had singed off the bottom right of her hair, also had soot all over her, and it appeared to be a rather nasty burn on her forearm.

"Exploding snap." They said at the same time, "Jinx!" They said at the same time again "Merlins silky boxer shorts!" at the same time again, they looked at each other wide eyed.

"Weird." They said at the same time, and then collapsed into fits of laughter. Remus and Lily exchanged a look.

"Hiya all!" James said as he came through the portrait hole, he raised an eyebrow at Sirius and Athena. "Exploding snap?" He asked, as he flopped down in between them, forcing Sirius off the couch.

Sirius had an absolutely murderous expression, that was not lost on Lily and Remus.

"Where've you been? Detention again?" Athena asked, as she waved her wand over the still smoking pile of cards, restoring them to their original state before she collected them and put them back under the couch cushion.

"Yeah, McGonagall caught me hexing Snivellous again." James shrugged.

Athena looked at Lily for any sign of a reaction, she stiffened slightly, but seemed otherwise unfazed.

"What did he do?" Lily asked

"Who?"

"Sniv- Sev- Snape." Lily, finally decided upon. James looked confused.

"What do you mean?"

"What did he do to deserve getting hexed again?" Lily clarified, looking annoyed. Sirius and Athena sighed, not this again.

"Uh- he was born?"

Athena stifled her laughter for Lily's sake, because she seemed really miffed.

"Lil, come on. He called you a Mud-Blood remember?" Athena said, and Lily turned a bright shade of red before storming off upstairs.

"What's her problem?" James asked, pulling Athena's legs on his lap, so that she was laying down. Athena gave him a quizzical look "I know you had another sinus infection." James admonished "You should be laying down."

Athena rolled her eyes, he would find something to worry about her if it killed him.

"I'm fine James!" She said, but settled into a more comfortable position, and grudgingly accepted that it made her head feel better.

"Anyway, I guess it's been long enough since the Mud-Blood incident that Lily isn't really that angry about it anymore, and is now starting to feel guilty."

"Guilty about what? She hasn't done anything to that greasy git." Sirius asked, still slightly glaring at James on the couch.

"I know, but she probably feels that talking to you guys about him, and 'condoning' you hexing him, is something worth being guilty over."

"Anyway, what'd you get him with James?" Remus asked.

"It was great, you guys would've loved it" James began..


	18. Exactly

_A/N: Sorry about leading you on about this chapter! I had it all written in my head and then when I actually put it down I didn't like it at all, so I scrapped it and had to begin again. I think my problem is that I keep writing later chapters and then trying to fill in the middle, it's a confusing way to write. Anyways thanks for the reviews! ALSO: I have absolutely no idea why my last chapter was compacted into that huge paragraph, I published it in the exactly the same way I always have. It's kind of distressing, so sorry for that! _

Regulus Black was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

He was glad to have been accepted into the older Slytherins group, he knew that was the natural progression of things, and he knew that their acceptance of him, meant that they felt he would be an asset to the Dark Lord. Regulus hadn't been sure that he wanted to be a Death Eater, but since Sirius left, his parents where putting a lot of pressure on him to regain the family honor. Now that he was getting older, he wasn't surprised when his older cousin Bella, and her friends approached him to become one of them.

He knew that he also shouldn't have been surprised when Bella called him to meet with her, Rabastan, Rodolphus, Snape, Viola Rosier, Wilkes, Cain, and Avery.

"You need to do something to prove yourself to us." Bella said, she seemed to delight in his discomfort and fear. So much for blood being thicker.

"What would you have me do Bella? We're Blacks. I'm as dedicated to the cause as you are." Regulus said, he knew that stroking Bella's ego was the only way to appeal to her. Bella looked pleased, but she apparently wasn't going to go easy on him.

"Your Blood-Traitor brother proved that isn't true _Reg_." Bella said, cruelly using the nickname that Sirius used to call him.

Regulus decided it was in his best interest to stay silent.

"Your task is to take down Athena Dumbledore." Bella said, and before Regulus could ask any questions, he was roughly pushed out of the room.

'_What does she mean, 'take down'?'_ Regulus thought to himself as he walked around the Hogwarts grounds a week later. Rodolphus expressed that they were all displeased with his lack of progress, and when Regulus tried to communicate the fact that he didn't quite understand what he was supposed to do, Rodolphus shoved him so hard he thought that he might have disconnected his shoulder.

"I'm not killing anyone on Hogwarts grounds." Regulus whispered feverishly to Snape when he bumped into him on his search for the group of Gryffindors.

"Especially not a Dumbledore!" Snape nodded silently, he seemed to be considering something.

"Bella is crazy, but she's not crazy enough to have you murder the Headmasters niece. She probably just wants you to hurt her or scare her, and most importantly not get caught."

Regulus nodded, he had figured as much. "Nobody else had to prove themselves did they?" Snape froze. "Yeah that's what I thought. She's punishing me for Sirius, isn't she?"

Snape shrugged, and walked away silently.

Regulus shook his head, he was doomed if Snape was the only person who was willing to help him.

One of the problems was that he didn't particularly _want_ to harm Athena Dumbledore.

Of all the Gryffindors she seemed to be the one whom he would be able to tolerate for any amount of time. She was never outwardly nasty to him, in fact she almost went out of her way to _not_ be nasty to him. He figured it was a credit to her loyalty to his brother, but it was impressive.

But, he wasn't surprised at the fact that this was who Bella picked for his 'task'. They were notorious in their hate for each other, and that was another way that Dumbledore impressed him. She was the only one he had ever seen stand up to Bella. Bella was so incredibly cruel that she was almost inhuman, and she was incredible at magic. Dumbledore was the only one who had been able to duel Bella and win consistently.

He would never say it out loud, but for all the power that Bella possessed, Athena Dumbledore had more. And really nobody should be surprised, which led to another reason why he didn't want to harm her, she was practically Professor Dumbledore's daughter.

Even though he felt that the Headmaster was fool for putting so much worth on MudBloods and Muggle-Borns, there was no denying that he was an extremely powerful wizard.

And so this is where Regulus found himself, hiding behind the stacks in the library, eavesdropping on Dumbledore, his brother, and the other ones that he didn't care about.

"Athena? Could you double check this?" Regulus heard the short fat one ask timidly.

"Sure Pete."

They sat in silence for a few more moments, Regulus was a bit surprised at his brothers attention span. He never did homework for more than a few minutes.

He dared a peek around the corner and wasn't surprised to see that Sirius wasn't doing homework at all, but he was surprised to see that he was drawing, sketching the scene in front of him. Dumbledore reading over the paper, Lupin resting his head on his hand as he flipped through pages, Evans looking a bit flustered as she frantically wrote something down. He was surprised at the detail, he had never even known his brother could draw. Although he suspected that his table mates didn't know that he was drawing them either.

"It's 7:30 already? Damn. I've got to go. Is it okay if I look this over later Pete?" Dumbledore said, standing up to gather her things, which she threw roughly into her bag.

"Uh sure." Peter shrugged, taking back his parchment and reading through it again.

"Where are you going?" Sirius asked, for some reason, hearing Sirius' voice made Regulus' stomach drop. He would be ashamed of him if he knew what he was about to do.

"My Uncle Al wants to speak with me." Dumbledore said, and turned quickly and walked away.

Regulus raised an eyebrow, but quickly used the disillusionment charm that Snape had taught him, and followed her out of the library. He wasn't entirely sure what he was going to do, but he figured that attacking her while she was on her way to meet the headmaster might garner him some extra points.

He was so deep in his thoughts that he hadn't realized that Dumbledore was going in the opposite direction of the Headmasters office. He finally noticed when they reached the fifth floor, and she began pacing in front of a tapestry.

'_Hmm..this is certainly interesting.'_ Regulus thought to himself as he leaned close to wall, _'I wonder why she lied.'_

He thought that perhaps Athena Dumbledore wasn't as innocent or as Gryffindor as everyone believed. Maybe she was meeting with Slytherins? It must be something bad. He looked up and down the corridor for any sign of other people who were meeting her, but he didn't see anyone.

He almost jumped back in fright when a door suddenly appeared in the tapestry.

"You're finally here." Regulus heard a voice from the door say, but before he could get a good look at who it was, Athena was pulled inside and the door was slammed shut.

ZZZ

Regulus knew that Bella was going to be absolutely furious. He'd had the perfect opportunity to act, and he didn't take it. He tried to think frantically of a way to spin the situation into one that was more comfortable for him as he walked back to the Slytherin common room. But no matter how he thought of it, he was in trouble.

"Well?" Bellatrix requested as soon as he entered the room, she was holding court in one of the high-backed chairs in front of the fireplace. He suspected that she quite enjoyed the fear she caused just by sitting there, with the flames licking up behind her.

"Well..you see.." Regulus began but Bella cut him off.

"You've failed again I presume." She said, her voice was as cold as ice. "You're really a credit to Slytherin." A few people laughed at her sarcasm.

"Go on then, give us your excuse, I'm sure it will be a good one."

Bella beckoned him forward, a sickly smile stretched across her features, made all the more grotesque by the flickering light.

"I listened to them in the library." Bella leaned forward in feigned interest.

"And then Dumbledore said that she had to go, she had a meeting with her Uncle." Bellatrix seemed mildly intrigued at this, her eyes flickered slightly.

"So I followed her."

"And?"

"Well, she lied." Bella was unmistakably interested. "Instead of going to the Headmasters office, she went to the fifth floor. She paced around in front of that tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy and a door appeared."

Regulus paused for them to be as shocked as he was, but none of them seemed impressed.

"Yes, yes she went to the Room of Requirement, then what?" Bella pressed.

"What's the Room of Requirement?"

"It's of no concern to you. Continue with the story."

Regulus almost shot her a glare, but he knew that would be a grave mistake. "So, the door opened and somebody said 'You're finally here.' She was pulled inside, and the door closed."

"And did you see who it was?"

"No."

Bella looked thunderous, but then it seemed something dawned on her.

"You've done well Regulus." She said, standing up and patting him on the shoulder. "This is excellent news."

Bellatrix began pacing around the room, deep in thought, while the other Slytherins who were 'privileged' enough to be in her circle all watched, bemused.

"Forgive me Bella," Snape interrupted her train of thought, it seemed these days that he was the only one brave enough to do it. "Why exactly is this excellent news?"

"Do you know what makes us different from the Gryffindors?" Bella asked, circling around Snape like a vulture. If he was phased, he didn't show it.

"Cunning, smarts, logic, an ability to do complex magic?" Snape said sarcastically, a few people chuckled, but were silenced immediately by Bellatrix.

"No."

"Enlighten me." He said, forming an arch with his fingers, his eyes were wisely trained on Bellatrix.

"As much as I loathe to admit it, you and I both know that Gryffindors posses those qualities."

Regulus was intrigued, he had never heard his cousin speak positively about their rival house.

"What sets us apart," She began, stepping into the center of the group. "Is loyalty."

"Loyalty?" Regulus repeated, he sat down on the floor near one of the large leather couches.

"Yes dear cousin. Loyalty." Bella said looking down at him, and Regulus had the feeling that this was something he should listen to and remember. "Have you ever lied to your friends or family?" She asked.

"Yeah." Regulus answered, unsure of what that had to do with anything.

"That is what sets us apart. We have the strength and the ability to lie to those we care about whenever it suits us. Gryffindors on the other hand, would never dream of lying to their loved ones. It would be a betrayal of trust. Somebody with as much pride in being a Gryffindor as Dumbledore, would never lie about something unless it was really important. We're going to find out what that lie is, and we're going to expose it."

ZZZZZ

Athena shivered as she stepped out into the cold night air. She pulled her cloak around her, mumbling the spell that her Uncle had taught her to make her standard Hogwarts issue robe thicker and warmer. She had almost made it out of the entry when she heard the sound of footsteps, quickly she held her breath and ducked into the shadows.

"Well then when are we going to tell _my_ mother?"

Athena glanced around the corner, Frank Longbottom and his girlfriend Alice were walking hand in hand around the entrance hall. Probably just beginning Prefect duty. She waited until their voices died away before moving out of the shadows and into the courtyard.

She used a few beams from the full moon to quickly peruse the Marauders Map.

_'Good,'_ She thought _'Everyone is where they're supposed to be.'_

Athena folded up the map and made her way across the courtyard and onto the Quidditch pitch, where she spotted the red and gold tower that Gryffindor fans usually sat in during Quidditch games, and hurried up the seemingly endless flights of stairs. When she finally got to the top her hair was sticking to her forehead and her cloak was slightly damp with sweat, she panted a little to catch her breath, and almost shrieked as a freezing wind blew past her, turning the sweat on her brow to ice.

"Damnit." She muttered, waving a warming charm over herself, but still she shivered.

She flattened herself against the wall as shield for the wind, and was still able to look up at the lights in millions of windows in Hogwarts. A loud deep chime resounded from the clock tower.

"Seven O'Clock." She whispered, "Show time."

She took a moment to glance up at the castle again, counting the windows until she found her Uncle Al's. Just as predicted, his light went out.

"Perfect."

She looked to the Forbidden Forest and heard a pained howl, she grimaced and raised her wand to the sky and began saying numerous incantations, some of which she learned from advanced spell books, and some of which she simply made up, but the loud resounding, almost window shattering _BOOM_ that erupted the moment she finished her spell, indicated that it was going exactly the way she planned.

The noise was enough to draw everyones attention to their windows, and if she squinted she could see faces pressed to the windows of the school, students and teachers all wondering what was going on. Immediately after the noise, enormous elaborate fire works began to explode in the sky. All red and gold of course. Every few minutes a loud _BANG!_ would shake the ground, and she knew she had about three minutes to get out of the Quidditch tower and get back up to Gryffindor.

"I could make it." She said aloud to herself, but she didn't move. Instead she stepped out from behind the wall, and looked down at the courtyard, she smiled broadly, the entire Hogwarts staff was rushing out to the pitch. Thankfully McGonagall was out in front of the pack, the red and gold probably indicated to her that it was one of her own, exactly as Athena had planned for. She looked livid.

"Athena Dumbledore! Get down here this instant!" McGonagall shouted as she reached the tower.

"Damn." Athen muttered, she should have known that her hair would give her away instantly. She glanced towards the courtyard again, but it was empty. So Athena pretended that she didn't hear Professor McGonagall, and continued to look up at the bright fireworks, the red glow cast and almost demonic look over McGonagalls bird like features, she was clearly growing angrier by the second.

But still the courtyard remained empty, so Athena kept on ignoring her. She felt bad about it, but she needed more time.

After one particularly loud boom, McGonagall finally lost it.

"_DUMBLEDORE! GET DOWN FROM THAT TOWER OR SO HELP ME MERLIN I WILL COME UP THERE AND GET YOU AND I ASSURE YOU THAT IS NOT SOMETHING YOU WANT TO MAKE ME DO!" _McGonagall must have used a powerful _Sonorous_ charm because her voice was so loud that that the ground shook.

Athena glanced desperately at the courtyard and sighed in relief when she saw three dark figures making their way across it. "Finally." She breathed, before heading down the many flights of stairs to the grassy pitch.

"What are you thinking!" McGonagall shouted as soon as Athena appeared in front of her, Athena winced. "Why must you always cause some type of disturbance! As the Headmasters niece it is your responsibility to set a good example to the other students!" McGonagall raged at her while the rest of the staff all looked on in wonderment.

McGonagall shot them a glare and they dispersed back into the castle, McGonagall dragged Athena by the arm across the courtyard and into the castle where she dragged her up to the Headmasters office, yelling all the way.


End file.
